Leisure experience02

Leisure experience

Emotion

What determines the emotion we are going through?

Motives and needs Physical and mental capabilities and their

influence on the experience Expectations preceding the participation in

leisure activity The environment

Emotions

Always there: in our brain Reactions to physiological changes – inners

selves (adrenaline, estrogen or testosterone) Reaction to external stimuli

Common Sense Theory of Emotion

Common Sense Theory of Emotion - a stimulus leads to an emotion, which then leads to bodily arousal.

Emotions in World of Leisure

Leisure: time to compensate certain shortcomings in everyday life

Stress needs to be counterbalanced Leisure offers surrogate solutions (artificial)

Why surrogate (artificial) solutions?

Loneliness

Boredom

Good movie?

Going rafting?

Leisure

Artificial surroundings Controlled adventure No real, natural emotions - artificial emotions We do display emotions in cinema, but these

emotions are different from real emotionsdifferent from real emotions

Artificial emotions

Temporary elimination of the disbelief Leisure manipulates the awareness of

simulation situation trying to induce real emotions

Is this desirable?

There is a boundary up to which we have our emotions under control

Emotions in Leisure

Leisure needs to ensure that, particularly when negative emotions are concerned, boundaries are not crossed and are well controlled.

Optimal Leisure Experience Flow

Leisure emotion generated during the consumption of a leisure product is called leisure experience

Leisure experience

The emotions evoked by participation may vary in intensity (flow)

The intensity of emotions differs with each leisure activity and also differs throughout the participation in one and the same activity

Flow: experience in which you forget everything around and you became ecstatic.

Characteristics of optimal leisure experience

Enriched perception Observation of the surroundings in intense

manner – the assumption is colorful and sparking

Characteristics of optimal leisure experience

Disturbance in the same sense Time sense gets utterly disturbed, Hours

pass as they are minutes, and time “flies”

Characteristics of optimal leisure experience

Strong personal involvement and total absorption

People totally lose themselves in the activity and are not aware about other things that are happening around them

Characteristics of optimal leisure experience

Sense of carelessness, fun and pleasure

Fear, Pain and Sorrow as a Peak Experience

Leisure experience is not always positive The importance of control of negative

emotions (controlled fear, pain, sorrow)

Leisure experience

Experience: emotional frame of mind when taking part in a leisure activity

Leisure experience vary in intensity and it is strongly individual

High experience value is usually associated with positive emotions but could derived from negative (controlled) emotions

Optimal leisure experience

The experience flow: pleasure, carelessness, intense perception,

full concentration, disturbance of one’s time sense.

Conditions for Optimal Leisure experience

Neulinger’s Leisure Paradigm Csikzentmihalyi’s Optimal Leisure experience

John Neulinger

April 26, 1924 - June 20, 1991

German-American psychologist and Professor of psychology at City College of New York.

Neulinger is best known for contributing a social psychological theory of leisure to the field of leisure studies

Neulinger’s paradigm (1)

Two qualities of leisure (perceived freedom of choice/perceived constraints intrinsic motivation) offer the explanation.

Neulinger’s paradigm (2)

All activities could be divided into 2 categories:Leisure: perceived freedom

Non- leisure: perceived constraint

Classification of Leisure & Non-leisure activities by motivation type

Intrinsic (internal) Motivation comes form rewards inherent to

an activity itself Extrinsic (external) Motivation comes from rewards outside of the

performer All activities can be intrinsically, extrinsically

or both motivated

Leisure categories

PURE LEISURE

freely engaged in, doing an activity for its own sake, no external awards

Please give examples …..

LEISURE WORK:

freely engaged in & combine both intrinsic & extrinsic motivation

The rewards/ incentives for doing the activities come form within & outside the performer

Please give examples

LEISURE JOB

Activities that are freely engaged in & are totally extrinsically motivated

The reward / incentives for participation in an activity come solely form outside the performer

Please give examples

Non leisure categories

PURE WORK

Activities that are participated in under some kind of constraint & are totally intrinsically motivated

WORK JOB

Activities that are participated in under some kind of constraint & combine both intrinsic& extrinsic motivation

Please give example…

PURE JOB

Activities that are performed in under some kind of constraint & are totally extrinsically motivated

Please give example

6 States of Mind State of Mind One: purest form of leisure--an activity freely chosen for its own sake;

contains freedom from external control & brings intrinsic rewards; E.G.: volunteering; any activity chosen for its own sake

State of Mind Two: (leisure-work) all activities are freely chosen yet are both extrinsically and intrinsically rewarding; activity is satisfying not only in itself but also in terms of payoffs; E.G.: gardening; woodworking; classic car restoration

State of Mind Three: leisure-job which one engages in without coercion but the satisfaction comes from external payoffs; E.G.: golf for money, exercising for better fitness.

State of Mind Four: pure-work, or activities engaged in because of perceived constraints but for intrinsic reasons; E.G.: homework - even though you like the subject, it is mandatory...given free choice you would not do it, but still find it interesting.

State of Mind Five: work-job--activities engaged in under constraint, but having both intrinsic and extrinsic rewards; E.G.: average job...work may be meaningful, but wouldn’t do it unless you were paid, or b/c you have to work to live

 6.  State of Mind Six: pure job represents a complete opposition to leisure; activity is done out of necessity and under constraint with only reward being external payoff; E.G.: drudgery work

FREEDOM

PERCEIVED FREEDOM PERCEIVED CONSTRAINT

intrinsic intrinsic & extrinsic

extrinsic intrinsic intrinsic & extrinsic

extrinsic

Pure leisure

Leisure-work

Leisure-job

Pure-work

Work-job

Pure job

LEISURE NON-LEISURE

STATE OF MIND

Task for next week 27.10.2011

Take a note the leisure behavior for 3 days for different people and based on these examples classify them into the Neulinger’s Leisure paradigm categories

You Your parents

Your younger siblings

Your older siblings

Day 1 Example / category

Day 2

Day 3

Csikszentmihalyi’s Optimal Leisure experience

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Hungarian psychologist, born

1934 in Italy, emigrated at age of 22 to USA, now professor at University of Chicago

Known by his studies in creativity and happiness, and as “father” of notion of “FLOW” experience

Csikszentmihalyi’s Optimal Leisure experience

When the peak experience occur, regardless of whether occur – in work or leisure time.

As a result of his studies and interviews of creative people he concluded that 2 matters are crucial:

COMMITMENT (skills) CHALLENGE ! One side

The quality of experience as a function of the relationship between challenges and skills. Optimal experience, or flow occurs when both variables are high.