An understanding of leisure as an area of occupational performance that can contribute to the individual's personal and social development is important to the occupational therapist. The knowledge bases from other disciplines, such as sociology and psychology, have much to offer in developing this understanding. Social identity and stereotype theories and symbolic interactionism suggest that leisure stereotypes may exist and could have an impact on identity.
In order to test this concept, 12 leisure activities were used as a means to assess whether leisure stereotypes exist for women. Stereotypes consisting of between 4 and 11 words were obtained using the checklist method, with 40 participants contributing to each stereotype (120 participants contributed in total). The stereotypes were found to include characteristics that were both positively and negatively valued and, consequently, they had a range of favourableness ratings. All but one, golf, were positively evaluated images. The implications of these results are discussed, in the context of relevant theories from sociology, psychology and feminist literature.
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