Abstract

Social science has made advances in understanding variability in recreation behavior. While there has been a tendency to focus on the psychology of recreation behavior (Iso-Ahola 1980, Jackson 1973), the importance of culture or ethnicity and the role of the social group are also important (Williams and St. Peters 1977). Cheek and Burch (1976) present theory and empirical evidence to demonstrate that one of the fundamental characteristics of leisure is ‘social’ participation, usually with a primary group. They conclude that social participation is a fundamental element that distinguishes leisure from work. Most of us travel to and from work alone, or in the company of strangers. At work, we have limited ability to select those we work with. Neither is true in leisure activities where we have greater latitude in choosing who to participate with and often maintain a long term association, for example, as in the case of fishing ‘buddies’.

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