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and KENNETH
FEIGENBAUM
ABSTRACT
The Kansas City Study of Adult Life, studying the social role performance of people aged forty to
seventy, gave ratings of performance on various social roles. When leisure activity was related to the pattern of social role performance (called "life-style"), four general life-styles were found: community-centered, home-centered high, home-centered medium, and low level, the adjectives for altitude referring to
level of social role performance. The most successful life-styles, judged by the level of role performance,
involved patterns of leisure which were active and similar rather than contrasting with the other social
roles. Middle-class people may be community-centered or home-centered in life-style and in leisure, but
working-class people are either home-centered or generally low in social role and leisure performance.
396
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397
ment of talent; instrumentation or expressiveness; relation of leisure to work; gregariousnessor solitude; service or pleasure;
status and prestige; relaxation; ego integration or role diffusion; new experience or
repetition; vitality or apathy; and expansion or constriction of interests.
The results of the several methods of
studying leisure were related to one another
and to a set of social and personal variables,
TABLE 1
LEISURE, PERSONALITY, AND SOCIAL VARIABLES*
Sex
Content........+++
Objective significance.........
Subjectivemeaning ...........
*
Age
Social
Class
Personal
Adjustment
Manifest
Complexity
Social
Mobility
Content
Significance
+++
+++
++
......
+++
++
+++
+++
++
+++
+ +++
+++ +
Meaning
+++
++
......
+ = a smaUdegree of relationship (not more than two or three of the content or significanceor meaning variables are
reliably related to a social or personalvariable)
+ + = a fair degree of relationship
=
a
+++
high degreeof relationship(morethan half of the leisurevariablesare reliablyrelatedto a social or personalvariable)
including age, sex, social class, personal adjustment, and manifest complexity of life.
The interrelationsare summarizedin Table
1.
The procedure in studying life-style was
based upon the use of the scores for performancein the eight social roles previously
mentioned.A life-style was defined as a pattern of role-performancescores shared by
a group of people.
Life-styles in this sense were discovered
among the 234 persons in the Social Role
Sample of the Kansas City Study of Adult
Life. There were actually twenty-seven
2 In addition, two other aspects of the person's
favorite leisure activities were studied: (1) the
content of the favorite leisure activities (eleven
categories of content) and (2) the subjective meanings of the favorite leisure aetivities (a set of twelve
statements of the kinds of satisfaction a person
might get from a leisure activity, from which the
respondent picked the meanings most applicable
to his favorite activities). For details concerning
the significance, content, and meaning studies see
Robert J. Havighurst, "The Leisure Activities of
the Middle-aged," American Journal of Sociology,
LXIII (September, 1957), 152-62; Marjorie N.
Donald and Robert J. Havighurst, "The Meanings
of Leisure" (MS).
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398
A. Community-centered.-This is a pattern
of uniformly high performance scores in all
eight social roles. It is called "community-centered" for the sake of contrast with the following group, though the performance scores in the
community roles of citizen, club or association
member, and friend are not higher than those
in the family areas but about the same. The
social class distribution of these people in the
Kansas City Metropolitan Area is shown in
Table 2.
B. Home-centered high.-These people have
C-)
__
_..,,,, __.
Work
Parent
Spouse
Honenaker
____,.
Le sure
Friend
Ci izen
Clubs and
Associations
ROL E AREA
FIG. 1.-Life-styles of middle-aged people: A, community-centered; B, home-centered high; C, homecentered medium; D, low level.
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399
TABLE 2
SOCIALCLASSDISTRIBUTIONOFLIFE-STYLES
(Per Cent)
Social Class
U&UM
. M.
LM ...........
UL ...........
LL ............
Total group. ..
Sex
Community-centered
Homecentered
High
Homecentered
Medium
Low
Level
Ungrouped
Total
Group
M
F
M
F
M
F
M
F
M
F
7
6
8
5
4
2
0
1
19
14
3
3
11
4
8
5
0
0
22
12
1
3
10
17
18
23
6
5
35
48
0
0
3
3
8
7
7
7
18
17
2
1
1
4
2
3
1
1
6
9
13
13
33
33
40
40
14
14
100
100
NOTE.-The actual distributionof indivualsin the Study Samplewas the basis for this table, but the figureshave
been adjusted to fit the true social class distributionof adults in the Kansas City MetropolitanArea, as determined
by Richard Coleman(unpublishedworkingpaperin the files of the Committeeon Human Development). Sincesome
people fell into two groups, they were assignedto the particulargroupswhich they fitted most closely.
and work roles somewhatabove the external ganizations where they interact with each
roles. This grouphas very low scores on per- other to formwider circles of social and busisonaladjustmentand on complexity.
ness contacts. Membership in the country
club
is part of their proper and accepted
We shall first answer the question, "What
are the 'leisure styles' of the four life- style of living. The community-centeredinstyles?" By "leisure style" we mean the dividuals also tend not to have young chilGestalt formed when one observes an in- dren at home, which allows freedomfor outside activity.
dividual's kinds and number of activities.
In contrast, the people who enjoy the
The community-centeredstyle of leisure
emphasizes activities engaged in away from home-centered style of leisure engage in
home. The individual uses entertainment most of it around their residence.This style
institutions, such as the theater or the con- is strongest in lower-middle-and upper-lowcert, or social institutions, such as the coun- er-class individualsand falls off in the lowertry club, Rotary, chamber of commerce, lower class, where family values lose some
Red Cross, etc., as the context for a major importance and the few pastimes become
part of it, either jointly by the members of sex-differentiated, the men going fishing
a family or individually. On the basis of the alone or to the bar or poolroom with the
significance ratings people employing the "boys."
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400
usually no broader than the kind of activities listed in circle 6. In graphic form
this illustrates the socially and spatially restricted nature of the leisure of the homecentered.
Two examples, one of a community-centered man with a high rating as a user of
leisure and the other of a high leisure homecentered man, may further the reader's
image of the difference between the two
styles of leisure.
Mr. X is a fifty-year-old executive vicepresident of a bank, with a pattern of leisure
activities which is the prototype of the community-centeredstyle of leisure. He is president of one country club, a member of
another, a Shriner, and a member of the
executive council of a national Boy's Club
movement and of a number of charity organizations. Mr. X's favorite leisure activity
is to go on trips during his vacation, to
New York City to see the Broadwaytheater,
and to see exhibitions of modern art. He is
active in encouraging the local art museum
to acquire examples of modern art. He enjoys playing golf once or twice a week at
the country club, playing cards, painting
his garage, and entertaining business people both at home and at the club. He does
not own a television set, preferringthe good
music on the radio. He goes with his wife
to the movies and to all the musicalcomedies
that come to Kansas City. As for friends,
Mr. X calls ten to twelve couples "close."
He met them through various activities:
"My business connections here at the bank,
civic clubs, church, etc." With his wife he
goes out to eat once a week and entertains
other couples.
In contrast to Mr. X, Mr. Y, a fifty-eightyear-old social worker, is an example of an
individual who employs the home-centered
style of leisure. His favorite activity is gardening, in which he spends one-half hour
to an hour a day during the growing season.
Mr. Y's hobby is model railroading,which
he engages in with his wife in the basement
of his home. He also does some woodworking
and woodcarving and manual work around
the home. Once in a while he reads historical
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The differences between the home-centered high, home-centeredmedium,and lowlevel life-styles as far as leisure is concerned
are mainly those between high, medium,
and low ratings on the scale of competence
as a user of leisure. A higher role performance is associated with the following significance variables: autonomy, creativity, getting strong pleasure from the activity, instrumental, high energy input, ego integration, vitality, and expansion of interests and
activities.
Have those whose leisure is home-centered different personalities from the com-
9~~~0\
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aTecrlen
401
nglisr
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404
achieve the feeling of "doing something dle-class people, but rarely are working-class
worthwhile."
people community-centered.An individual
with a large family of childrenis more likely
CONCLUSIONS
to be home-centered.However, his place of
1. The most successful life-styles, as residence-whether in a suburb, single-famjudged by the level of role-performance ily home, or city apartment-does not seem
scores, have concomitant patterns of leisure to affect his leisure style to any great degree.
activity. The community-centeredlife-style The personality of the individual appears to
includes a leisure pattern which spreads find its own leisure style.
3. There are a few exceptionalcases where
from the home out through a variety of
community circles. On the other hand, a the life-style and the leisure style are not in
successful home-centeredlife-style contains close relation. One group of such cases cona home-centeredleisure pattern. These suc- sists of about 5 per cent of adults. They are
cessful leisure patterns tend to be autono- people with little or no leisure activity who
mous, creative, instrumental, vital, and ego have a successful life-style and good perintegrative, whether they be community- sonal adjustment. These men and women
generallyinvest most of their energy in work
centered or home-centered.
The lower-level life-styles are lower in or in home and children,with little time and
performance in roles external to the home inclination for leisure.
Another group consists of about 6 per
than in the home roles. They also have
cent
of adults. They have a high level of
lower-level leisure styles, with lower scores
leisure
activity but are dissatisfied or inadein
on the values listed
the preceding paraquate workers or parents or spouses who
graph.
2. The two major types of leisure style, attempt to compensate with a high leisure
the community-centeredand the home-cen- performance.
tered, appearto be equally accessibleto mid- UNIVERSITY OF CEICAGO
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