Transcript Understanding Leisure with Social Psychology

Chapter One
Understanding Leisure with
Social Psychology
1
What is Social Psychology?
Social psychologists study attitudes and
beliefs, conformity and independence,
love and hate.
Social psychology is the scientific study
of how people think about influence, and
relate to one another.
2
Hierarchy of Disciplines
Integrative Explanation
Theology
Philosophy
Sociology
Social Psychology
Psychology
Biology
Chemistry
Physics
Elemental Explanation
3
Social Science and Quest for
Happiness, Health and Good Life
(社會科學與追求快樂、健康和美好的生活)
4
Juggling and Balancing the Demands of
Daily Life (安排和平衡每日生活)
 Lifestyle is typically described as a “total way of
living”.
 People are bombarded from all sides with
suggestions for the best way to juggle and
balance the various aspects of their lives.
 Access
to
instantaneous
electronic
communication has created widespread
awareness of lifestyle alternatives even if these
choices are not available to everyone.
5
Juggling and Balancing the demands of
Daily Life (cont’)
 Most
people believe that their lifestyles
determine their health and happiness.
 People can create their own lifestyles through
how they juggle and balance the work, family
and leisure aspects of their lives.
6
People-Watching as a Science
(觀察人們的一種科學)
 Social science addresses the problems such as
child abuse, neurosis, alienation, drug abuse,
stress, unemployment, poor eating habits,
smoking, lack of exercise.
 Social science also addresses positive aspects
of life such as altruism, creativity, humor, and
empathy.
7
Contribution of Social Science
 Social science will contribute answers and
raise social awareness about specific lifestyle
issues so we will be better able to control our
lives.
8
What is Leisure
 Activity (e.g., attending a movie )
 Time free from obligations.
 Satisfying
experience (e.g., feelings of
satisfaction, fun excitement, awe, belonging)
 Some combination of activity, time and
experience.
9
Is Leisure a Problem
 Unemployment and part-time work have grown that the
number of people working well beyond a forty-hour
week has increased.
 Other people appear to be thriving on more work, and
yet for others, work seems to be a form of addiction or
workaholicism driven by problems.
 On the other hand, for children, retirees, the
underemployed and unemployed, leisure may count for
up to two-thirds or more of their time and activity,
10
Is Leisure a Problem (cont’)
 These differences and problems make the
study of leisure and how people deal with it a
fascinating topic.
 All the above phenomena are matters of great
academic, political, and social interest.
11
The Psychologization of Leisure Services
 More and more, leisure has been singled out as an
important vehicle for promoting healthy lifestyles and
activities.
 Many recreation providers are as concerned with the
quality of the experiences provided by their
recreational services as they are with the activities
and settings they manage.
 Success of leisure services is based on structuring the
leisure environment and to create or encourage
predictably satisfying experiences.
12
The Psychologization of Leisure Services
(cont’)
 It has become apparent that an understanding of the
psychological or experiential nature of leisure must
be developed.
 Most college and university recreation and leisure
studies programs encourage their students to
integrate and understand the interplay between
people, resource, and policy issues.
 Social science research is devoted to understanding
not only the antecedents and consequences of
leisure choices, but also the factors that affect the
quality and meaning of the choices.
13
Social Psychology of Leisure
14
Forewords
 Leisure behavior and experience are seen to be a
function of the interplay of internal psychological
dispositions (e.g., perceptions, feelings, emotions,
beliefs, attitudes, needs, personality) and social
contexts (e.g., other people, culture, group norms,
family, media…).
 B=f(P,E)
15
Trouble at the Video Arcade
 Please see the description in p.13.
16
What Is a Leisure Problem?
 Is the video arcade issue a leisure problem?
 Most of us would agree that video games at the
arcade is a leisure behavior and a recreational
activity.
 Leisure problems often take the form of barriers
or constraints that prevent people from engaging
in or experiencing satisfying leisure.
 Participating in leisure may result in negative
outcomes for the individual or society.
17
How Would You Approach
This Problem?
 What suggestions can you give to the school board?
 Has there been an increase in truancy (逃學) and
larceny (偷竊) in the school after the opening of the
arcade?
 Does the presence of the arcade and video game affect
all students in the school in negative manner?
 The link between video game playing and the deviant
behavior of truancy and larceny in school may be
irrelevant?
18
The Social Psychological Approach
(社會科學的方法)
19
Can the Problem Be Studied with Social
Psychology?
 The
social psychological approach is a
scientific approach.
 The scientific method is simply a way of
making observations or gathering information
in a systematic way.
 The scientific method involves the use of
controlled, systematic inquiry, and a logical
and rational approach to explanation.
20
Can the Problem Be Studied with Social
Psychology? (cont’)
 For the video arcade case, we will ask:
 Have incidents of “crime” in the school increased since
the arcade opened?
 Are students from the school using their “leisure time” to
hang out in the arcade?
 Are there any link between “crime” and “video arcade”?
 If there is evidence of a link, what are the social and
psychological explanation for the link between playing
at the arcade and the deviant behavior at school that
might help to understand and ultimately deal with the
problem?
21
Theory and Cause-and-Effect
Relationships
 The theory suggested by the newspaper article
seems to be the presence of the arcade
provides opportunities and causes students to
engage in the leisure behavior of playing
video games which leads to addition which in
turn leads to truancy and larceny.
 However, there is little or no evidence
provided in the article to support this theory.
22
Stimulus-Response Approach
(刺激-反應方法)
 S→R
 Behaviorists argued that since people’s attitudes,
thoughts, feelings and motives cannot be seen,
they are not worth studying or using in theories
to explain human behavior.
 Situationism suggests that social situations or
settings act as stimuli to elicit a response
(behavior) and that this predictable response
occurs because it leads to positive consequences
or rewards.
23
Stimulus-Response Approach (cont’)
 You might theorize that the mere presence of the
video arcade stimulates the response of video
game playing. The rewards maintaining this
behavior might be admiring words of peers or the
wining of free games.
 In fact, only a small number of students involved
in arcade video game playing. The mere presence
of the video arcade seems insufficient to explain
this problematic leisure behavior.
24
Organism-Response Approach
(個體-反應方法)
 The O-R approach is based on the assumption that
people demonstrate stable and enduring differences
in their needs, motives, attitudes and personalities,
independent of situation, which lead them to behave
consistently across a wide range of situation.
 If you want to understand why some students are
attracted to the video arcade and engage in crime at
school, you need to look for those characteristics that
they carry around with them in their minds and that
distinguished them from their more law-abiding
peers.
25
Organism-Response Approach (cont’)
 In this arcade case, sensation seeking (need for
excitement) might explain why some students
are involved in the arcade and others are not,
and why this activity leads to deviant school
behavior for some.
 A person’s inflated belief in the importance of
person factors for explaining behavior, together
with the failure to recognize the importance of
situational factors, has been termed the
“fundamental attribution error”.
26
Stimulus-Organism-Response Approach
 This
interactionism assumes that people’s
behavior and experience can be best understood
by taking into account both the influence of
social situation and personal traits.
 In the case of the video arcade problem, this
approach suggests that the key to understanding
the students’ behavior lies in developing an idea
of how they think and feel about the arcade and
school settings.
27
Stimulus-Organism-Response Approach
(cont’)
 Students who are members of peer groups that value
video playing expertise (social situation influence)
would more likely to be addicted and commit deviant
acts at school.
 If we were to examine sensation seekers who are also
members of peer groups who value video playing and
find that a very high percentage of these students
were hanging out at the arcade and engaging in
deviant behavior at school, we would have a situation
by person interaction and a much better explanation
of the behavior in question.
28
Stimulus-Organism-Response Approach
(cont’)
 It was only when these situation (peer group,
video game arcade) and personal variables
(sensation seeker) were both present or
interacting that they have a strong influence on
behavior.
 When outside the peer group context,
personality differences may have a stronger
influence on participation or nonparticipation
in video game playing.
29
Defining the Social Psychology
of Leisure (定義休閒社會心理學)
 Social psychology is the scientific study of the
behavior and experience of individuals in social
situation.
 Social psychology of leisure is the scientific study
of the leisure behavior and experience of
individuals in social situation.
 Social psychology of leisure applies the scientific
method of systematic observation, description,
and measurement to the study of people.
30
Defining the Social Psychology
of Leisure (cont’)
 The social psychology of leisure focuses on the
individual.
 Sociologists are more interested in how collectives of
people, such as small groups, organization, and
societies as a whole operate.
 Social psychology is concerned with how individuals
behave and perceive their social world: how they
learn about it; remember what they experience in it;
and appraise and evaluate it.
31
Defining the Social Psychology of
Leisure (cont’)
Researchers can observe experience by
communicating with people, that is,
having people tell them what is on their
minds.
The social psychology of leisure involves
the study of experience and behavior.
32
Limitations and Challenges
 First, there has been growing concern that the social
psychology of leisure has been predominantly the
study of male leisure behavior and experience until
quite recently.
 Second, there have been criticisms that leisure studies
during the past two decades have been too
psychological; too myopically (目光短淺) focused on
the individual.
 Third, the frame of this book is strongly influenced
by the social psychological traditions of North
American psychology.
33
Quantitative Study vs. Qualitative Study
(定量研究與定性研究)
 A quantitative study is “an inquiry into a social
or human problem based on testing a theory
composed of variables, measured with
numbers, and analyzed with statistical
procedures in order to determine whether the
predictive generalizations of the theory hold
true”.
34
Quantitative Study vs. Qualitative Study
(cont’)
 A qualitative study is “defined as an inquiry
process of understanding a social or human
problem, based on building a complex, holistic
picture, formed with words, reporting detailed
views of informants, and conducted in a
natural setting”.
35
Final Notes
 Social science can never be completely value
free.
 Many scientists today do not believe that
science can ever be completely unbiased and
objective.
 Good science is the effort to shake (減弱)
ourselves free of preconceptions, or at least
become aware of them.
36
The End...
Thank You!
37
38
Experience and Behavior
 What a person perceives, feels, learns, or
remembers is often inferred from behavior.
 Researchers can observe experience by
communicating with people, having people tell
them what is on their mind.
 The researcher will be interested in both
leisure behavior and experience defined
“objectively” by outside observers and
“subjectively” by the individual herself or
himself.
39