The Multidirectional Associations of Behavior, Identity, and Experience in Leisure

There has been little written about how the concepts of behavior, identity, and experience in leisure relate to one another, where they fall within the nomological network, and their conceptual distinctions. The issue is further magnified by these constructs’ multidimensionality with subdimensions sharing conceptual overlay further exacerbating concerns over construct validity. This paper forwards the idea that leisure cannot be fully understood without bridging the concepts of behavior, identity, and experience. Each concept must be viewed in symbiotic fashion to understand how individuals make meaning and decisions in leisure through an iterative engagement, thus enacting their agency in a multidirectional process where each construct informs and affects the others.