Social psychology of leisure 2.0: Looking back, looking forward

Abstract

This invited commentary provides a brief history of the social psychology of leisure and describes some research themes this approach should consider focusing on in the future. In both cases, emphasis is placed on cross-cultural/national leisure research.

Keywords:

• Class
• culture
• positive psychology
• self-construal

Notes

1 Non-Western and cross-cultural/national leisure research, according to Ito et al. (2014), refers to studies conducted in at least one country not defined by the United Nations as a member of the Western European and Other States group.

2 Roger Mannell once told me that the first edition of A Social Psychology of Leisure almost did not happen. Roger was considering terminating his agreement with Venture Publishing because of other academic and administrative demands when Geoffrey Godbey, the company co-owner, challenged him to a squash game. If Roger won, the book was dead. If Geof won, the book would be completed. Luckily for the leisure field, Geof prevailed on the court that day.

3 Mannell based this classification scheme on Hoshino-Browne et al.’s (2004) three-generation cross-cultural psychology framework.