Meanings of Leisure in China and Canada

• Author / Creator

  Gui, Jingjing

• Defining and characterizing leisure remains a central issue in the field of leisure and recreation studies; yet there are different views of what constitutes leisure, and researchers have yet to come to an agreement. This issue is more complicated for researchers from non-Western countries like China, where leisure studies is still at an early stage of development and their language does not necessarily have an equivalent to the English “leisure”. The purpose of this dissertation is to examine meanings of “leisure” and a Chinese leisure-like word, “xiū xián”, by comparing them. To this end, two complimentary studies were conducted using a cultural/cross-cultural psychological perspective. Study 1 examined meanings of leisure and xiū xián from laypeople’s perspectives by modifying Ito and Walker’s (2014) Leisure Ten Statements Test. Specifically, 165 Euro-Canadian and 188 Mainland Chinese undergraduate students were asked to provide 10 answers to “What is leisure/xiū xián for you?” and “What is not leisure/xiū xián for you?”. An inductive coding of these lay definitions resulted in 24 categories, aligned with expert definitions (i.e., time, activity, setting, and psychological experience), which suggests the cross-cultural applicability of the leisure conception. A series of multivariate analysis of variance revealed cultural similarities and differences. Compared to their Euro-Canadian counterparts, Mainland Chinese students were more likely to mention outdoor and traveling as leisure, food and drinks as leisure, mass media as leisure and non-leisure, rest and reflection as leisure and non-leisure, motivation as leisure and non-leisure. Compared to their Chinese counterparts, Euro-Canadian students were more likely to identify sport and physical activities as leisure, time and slow as leisure, work as non-leisure, housework and body care as non-leisure, and emotion as leisure and non-leisure. The statistical results also suggested that Mainland Chinese and Euro-Canadians defined leisure/xiū xián similarly for some categories (e.g., relatedness and social activities, autonomy). For future leisure research, I propose a laypeople’s definition of leisure from a cross-cultural perspective: leisure is positive mental states (e.g., fun, relaxed, related) experienced through typically unobligated activities (e.g., media use, outdoor recreation, travel, sport) that take place during free time with little time pressure; simultaneously, leisure is not negative mental states (e.g., bored, stressed) that often take place during obligatory activities (e.g., work, school, chores) with time constraints. This definition highlights a multi-dimensional perspective (i.e., incorporating psychological, behavioral, and temporal aspects). To further elucidate the relationship among leisure, emotion, and culture, Study 2 adopted a cultural psychology method called situation sampling (see Kitayama, Markus, Matsumoto, & Norasakkuunkit, 1997). Using an onsite survey, I collected leisure and non-leisure situations (in written form) from 126 Euro-Canadian and 149 Mainland Chinese undergraduate students. Employing an online survey, I then asked a different sample of 203 Euro-Canadian and 228 Mainland Chinese undergraduate students about the extent to which they (a) interpret each of randomly sampled situations as leisure or non-leisure and (b) assess an ideal level of positive affect within the situations. In terms of the latter, three distinct types of positive emotion were measured: high-arousal (e.g., excitement), low-arousal (e.g., relaxation), and interpersonally engaging (e.g., friendly). Although both groups distinguished leisure from non-leisure situations regardless of culture, statistical analyses indicated that participants were more likely to experience leisure situations generated by their own cultural members, which led them to interpret these situations as leisure. Moreover, Chinese leisure situations were more conducive to positive engaging emotions than Canadian leisure situations, and Chinese participants idealized positive engaging emotions in leisure situations more than their Euro-Canadian counterparts did. These two studies identified many cultural similarities in leisure definitions from laypeople’s perspective (e.g., positive affect, intrinsic motivation, and autonomy) as well as nuanced cultural differences in leisure experiences (e.g., positive engaging emotions in Chinese culture). My dissertation not only lends credence to many existing leisure theories in North America (e.g., leisure as defined by Neulinger, 1974) but also contributes to the further development of non-Western leisure studies by demonstrating the comparability of xiū xián with leisure and introducing the situation sampling method to the cross-cultural study of leisure.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Culture
  • Situation sampling method
  • Leisure meanings
  • Lay definition
  • Ideal affect
  • China

• Graduation date

  Fall 2019

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Doctor of Philosophy

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-6mf7-qs77

• License

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