Leisure and Life-Style

Abstract

The Kansas City Study of Adult Life, studying the social role peformance of people age forty to seventy, gaven 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-style 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.