Identity Affirmation through Leisure Activities: Leisure Symbols of the Self

Individuals affirm the nature of their identities through a variety of mechanisms, including selection of and participation in leisure activities. Through leisure activities we are able to construct situations that provide us with information that we are who we believe ourselves to be, and provide others with information that will allow them to understand us more accurately. This paper describes two studies that explore the role of leisure activities in the process of maintaining and expressing one's identity. Leisure identities are depicted as cognitive, multidimensional self-concepts. Study 1 examined the nature of leisure identity images for eight leisure activities. Study 2 used a separate sample of leisure participants to measure desire for these identity images. Discriminant analysis indicated that leisure participants could be correctly assigned to their activity group on the basis of their desire for the various leisure identities. It was concluded that leisure activities symbolize discrete sets of identity images, which generalize from one sample to another, and which may be seen as a motivation for participation in specific leisure activities. That is, we may select leisure activities on the basis of their ability to affirm valued aspects of our identities.