Cultural consonance predicts leisure satisfaction in Taiwan

ABSTRACT

The degree to which individuals are satisfied with their leisure strongly relates to and may substantially influence numerous other aspects of their lives. Nevertheless, although past research has shown that, in some cases, leisure satisfaction is associated with demographic, psychosocial, and/or cultural variables, the comparative efficacy of predictive variables is underdetermined, especially in non-Western societies. Hence, the purpose of this study is to determine which, among several variables measured in a sample of individuals from Taiwan, best predict leisure satisfaction. We focus, in particular, on cultural consonance in leisure, the degree to which individuals participate in leisure activities that are culturally accepted as important to a good quality of life. Multiple regression and dominance analysis indicate that cultural consonance in leisure, perceived stress, self-rated health, and community satisfaction predict leisure satisfaction better than demographics or leisure constraints.

KEYWORDS:

• Taiwan
• leisure satisfaction
• cultural consonance
• leisure constraints
• stress
• community satisfaction
• dominance analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Following Dressler (2017), we use the term ‘cultural model’ to refer to the schematic or modular knowledge contained in cultural domains, such as ‘kinds of fish,’ ‘kinship terms,’ or ‘leisure activities.’ Cultural models consist of the elements in a domain, relationships among those elements, and information about how domains relate to each other.

2. We deleted 5 cases that either had more than 5 missing responses per informant or no variance in responses. This reduced the sample size to 965.

3. Comrey and Lee (1992) regarded factor loadings of.32 as poor, .45 as fair, .55 as good, .63 as very good, and.71 and above as excellent.

4. The 42 leisure activities and 24 leisure constraints, along with their free listing frequencies and mean values of their importance for a good quality of life, are available in Chick et al., 2016.

5. The.01 level of significance is based on the Benjamini-Hochberg correction for multiple comparisons.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Ministry of Science and Technology  (formerly the National Science Council of Taiwan)  under Grant NSC99-2410-H-259-060.

Notes on contributors

Garry Chick

Garry Chick is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Recreation, Park and Tourism Management at the Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA. His research interests include leisure and culture, adult play and playfulness, and research methods.

Erwei Dong

Erwei Dong is Assistant Dean and Clinical Professor in Hainan University - Arizona State University International Tourism College (HAITC) at School of Community Resources and Development in Arizona State University, USA. His research interests include leisure and culture, leisure and health, leisure and tourism, and leisure and sport.

Chih-Kuei Yeh

Chih-Kuei Yeh  is a Professor at the Department of Tourism, Recreation and Leisure Studies in National Dong Hwa University, Taiwan . His key research interests include philosophy of leisure, cross-cultural studies of leisure, sociology of leisure, and leisure behavior.

Chi-Ming Hsieh

Chi Ming Hsieh  is Associate Professor in the International Bachelor Program of Agribusiness at National Chung Hsing University, Taiwan. His main research interests focus on leisure and recreation behavior, service quality in tourism and hospitality, agritourism, agribusiness, community-based tourism, and sustainable development.