Toward an applied social psychology of leisure

Social experiencehas not figured prominently in the social psychology of leisure in the past, though the qualities of leisure experience itself-feelings of freedom, intrinsic interest, self-determination, and enjoyment-have had a defining and guiding role. Theexperience design movementhas revitalized prospects for leisure service management based to some extent on this earlier work; but both experience design and basic social psychological research into the dynamics and effects of leisure experience might well give more attention to the nature of self in social contexts, the dynamics of social engagement including shared flow, and the integrative and disintegrative effects of enjoyable social interaction. Experience design can indeed protect personal autonomy and concern itself with downstream effects, but investigators would be wise to consider both personal development and social integration in the process, preferably with participatory action research that monitors social experience.