Experiencing the outdoors: peak episodes are interesting but the memories are pleasant

ABSTRACT

Inspired by the distinction between hedonic and eudaimonic feeling states, we examined the distinction between feelings of pleasure and interest as well as subsequent motivation related to participation in outdoor events among students of physical education (n = 64) in a Norwegian university college. The students reported on their experiences during two three-day trips: one coastal trip and one ski trip. The participants also reported how they felt about the trips after one week and after one month. The feelings of pleasure and interest were contrasted by analysing mean scores, factor loadings and regression coefficients. Momentary experiences typically showed higher scores for feelings of interest than for feelings of pleasure, but there were some exceptions. The interest-higher-than-pleasure tendency tended to disappear for remembered experiences. The results support the notion that pleasure and interest are separable emotions with distinct functions, but our findings are far from conclusive. Implications for outdoor leadership and future research are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Positive emotions
• flow experience
• experience–memory gap
• outdoor education

Acknowledgements

This research is based on data that will be used in the first author’s doctoral dissertation. A preliminary version of the results was presented at the 5th European Conference in Positive Psychology, Moscow, 26–29 June 2012.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Helga S. Løvoll

Helga S. Løvoll is Assistant Professor in outdoor education at Volda University College and a PhD candidate at the University of Bergen.

Joar Vittersø

Joar Vittersø is Cand. Polit., Cand. Psychol. and Dr. Psychol. He serves as Professor in Social Psychology at the Department of Psychology at UiT The Arctic University of Norway.

Bente Wold

Bente Wold is Professor Cand. Psychol. and Dr Psychol. at University of Bergen. Bente is Head of the Social Influence Process on Adolescent Health (SIPA) group, a thematic research group on social processes on subjective health and lifestyles among adolescents.