Ethnicity, Acculturation, Self-Construal, and Motivations for Outdoor Recreation

Research on the leisure of racial and ethnic groups has recently been criticized for a variety of different reasons. In response to some of these concerns, this article examines the motivations of outdoor recreationists who identify themselves as being Chinese (n = 53); it compares their motivations with those of Euro-North Americans (n = 180) at the same time outdoor setting; and it does so using the construct of self-construal as an intervening variable between ethnicity, acculturation, and motivations for outdoor recreation. According to Markus and Kitayama (1991), individuals with independent self-construals value being unique, expressing themselves, and promoting their own goals, whereas individuals with interdependent self-construals value belonging, fitting in, and promoting others' goals. Furthermore, although people in or from Western Europe and North America are more likely to have independent self-construals, people in or from Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Southern Europe are more likely to hold interdependent self-construals. On the basis of the above, a series of regressions were conducted. Results suggest that (a) ethnicity does affect both types of self-construal; (b) ethnicity does affect four outdoor recreation motivations directly, although this relationship is usually, but not always, mediated by self-construal; (c) ethnicity does affect four other recreation motivations indirectly, either through the interdependent self-construal or through both types of self-construal; and (d) with Chinese respondents, acculturation did affect one recreation motivation directly and, through the independent self-construal, two other motivations indirectly. © 2001 Taylor and Francis.