Coping with crowded recreation settings: A cross-cultural investigation

Abstract

The “satisfaction model” of crowding in outdoor recreation has provided insight into the relationship between recreationists’ negative evaluation of setting density and their evaluation of the leisure experience. Much of the literature has demonstrated a consistently weak association leading many to ponder the presence of other confounds. Several authors have suggested the importance of recreationists’ ability to cope with setting conditions. We examined the mediating effect of recreationists’ coping abilities on the crowding-satisfaction relationship in the context of water-based recreation across three countries; the United States (n = 2,252), Taiwan (n = 2,566), and Korea (n = 462). For all countries, different coping strategies were employed by boaters to maintain their enjoyment. Invariance testing was used to identify variation in the structural relationships tested in our model. The varied experiential meanings across the three countries manifested itself in the way setting density was evaluated and, in turn, elicited responses to accommodate the condition to maintain recreationists’ enjoyment.

Keywords:

• Coping
• cross-cultural study
• crowding

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a grant from Kyung Hee University in 2015 (KHU-20150513).