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Leisure Studies
ISSN: 0261-4367 (Print) 1466-4496 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rlst20
Casual leisure: a conceptual statement
Robert A. Stebbins
To cite this article: Robert A. Stebbins (1997) Casual leisure: a conceptual statement, Leisure
Studies, 16:1, 17-25, DOI: 10.1080/026143697375485
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/026143697375485
Published online: 01 Dec 2010.
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Casual leisure: a conceptual statement
ROBERT A. STEBBINS
Department of Sociology, The University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2N 1N4
Since 1982, the year the serious leisure perspective was rst set out, the concept of
casual leisure has served mostly as a foil for sharpening understanding of that
framework. Yet casual leisure is a distinctive activity in itself and an important part
of the contemporary leisure scene, suggesting that it, too, should be conceptually
elaborated just as serious leisure was earlier. Thus the principal goal of this article is
to present a theoretical statement dening casual leisure as a separate eld
demarcated by its own special properties. To this end, a denition of casual leisure is
presented after which its six types are described. This is followed by a section on
hedonism and other rewards and one on deviant leisure, both casual and serious.
Fifteen years ago (Stebbins, 1982) the author coined the term ‘serious leisure’
to identify more clearly a eld of research in the leisure sciences that he
believed worthy of particular empirical and theoretical scrutiny. Since that
time serious leisure has come to be known by its shorthand denition as the
systematic pursuit of an amateur, a hobbyist, or a volunteer activity
sufciently substantial and interesting for the participant to nd a career there
in the acquisition and expression of a combination of its special skills,
knowledge, and experience. To further clarify its meaning, the author and
other writers in this area have tended to contrast serious leisure with casual,
or unserious, leisure, as exemplied in activities like taking a nap or strolling
in the park or, when pursued as diversions, watching television or reading a
newspaper. The author has occasionally added to these denitional state-
ments the observation that casual leisure can also be understood as all leisure
falling outside the realm of serious leisure.
Thus, over the years, among those researchers who have written on serious
leisure, casual leisure has been cast in a residual role. I am perhaps the most
culpable in this regard, for I have used casual leisure, among other ways, as
a foil to illuminate the distinguishing qualities of serious leisure (Stebbins,
1992, pp. 6–7) and to describe its enthusiasts by showing how they are much
more than mere dabblers, players, or dilettantes, all basically casual leisure
participants. In looking back at them now, these brief, sketchy portrayals of
casual leisure have been painted in deprecatory colours, especially when
contrasted with the portrayals of serious leisure (e.g. Stebbins, 1996a, b),
leisure activity commonly venerated for its worklike character.
Nevertheless, the place accorded casual leisure in the larger world of all
leisure is, in signicant part, a matter of personal perspective; researchers
have different views of it and so do the people who participate in it. For the
person presently studying or participating in serious leisure, it is the most
Leisure Studies 16 (1997) 17–25 0261–4367 © 1997 E & FN Spon
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important activity of the moment, an orientation that temporarily forces
casual leisure to the sidelines. Yet, beyond the spheres of research and
participation in serious leisure, it is evident that casual leisure is anything but
marginal. Many more people participate in it than in serious leisure and many
of the interviewees in my studies of amateurs, hobbyists, and career
volunteers have pointed out that they also enjoy and therefore value their
casual leisure. In other words, casual leisure is an important form of leisure in
itself and, for that reason alone, should be conceptually claried and
elaborated. Although such clarication and elaboration will also sharpen our
understanding of serious leisure by further differentiating the two, the
principal goal of this paper is to present a theoretical statement centring on
casual leisure as a eld of its own indicated by its distinctive properties.
A de nition
Although there has been far more research conducted on the forms of casual
leisure than on those of serious leisure, no one has ever worked up a
denition of the former; hence no one has ever mounted a study specically
guided by such a de nition. To ll this theoretical and empirical void, the
present paper conveys an initial statement, proceeding along lines similar to
those of the initial conceptual statement on serious leisure, to offer a
tentative, relatively general, denition of casual leisure. A crisper, more
focused denition should emerge in due course, one important result of future
research on casual leisure expressly guided by the concept to be elaborated
below. As a beginning, then, casual leisure can be dened as immediately,
intrinsically rewarding, relatively short-lived pleasurable activity requiring
little or no special training to enjoy it.1In broad, colloquial terms, it could
serve as the scientic term for the practice of doing what comes naturally.
This denition gives enough precision to focus enquiry on casual leisure,
but not so much as to obviate changes to the denition that could emerge
through exploration of its particular forms by means of open-ended
investigation. In sociology, concepts of this sort have been described as
‘analytic’ or ‘sensitizing’ (Blumer, 1969, pp. 147–149; Glaser and Strauss,
1967, pp. 38–39). The following types of casual leisure should also be
understood in these terms.
Types of casual leisure
Preliminary observation suggests that casual leisure comes in at least six
types, treated here under the headings of play, relaxation, passive enter-
tainment, active entertainment, sociable conversation, and sensory stimula-
tion. Although the types are conceptually distinct, participants can and, it
appears, frequently do, experience two or three of them while engaging in a
particular leisure activity. No claim is made here that this set is exhaustive;
research might well uncover additional types.
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Play, relaxation, and entertainment
Kelly (1990, p. 28) has identi ed three central elements of play:
1. play generally refers to the activity of children or to a ‘childlike’ lightness
of behaviour in adults;
2. play is expressive and intrinsic in motivation;
3. play involves a nonserious suspension of consequences, a temporary
creation of its own world of meaning which often is a shadow of the
‘real world’.
It is obvious that some adult casual leisure activities can be considered play.
It is less obvious, however, that, when they play, adults often dabble in or play
around at an activity pursued as serious leisure by others. Examples of such
lightheartedness are legion; they include the casual, or occasional, canoeist,
tennis player, piano player, sport sher, and stamp collector (the latter being
more accurately viewed as a type of ‘accumulator’, (Olmsted, 1991). Some of
the differences separating casual and serious leisure involvement in tourism
and volunteering have also been examined (Stebbins, 1996a, b). In general, in
every serious leisure eld studied so far by the author, its participants and
devotees recognize the existence of dabblers there, oriented by a carefree
attitude toward the activity that contrasts sharply with their own serious
approach to it.
The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary denes relaxation as a
‘release from mental or physical tension; especially by recreation or rest’. We
relax and thereby enjoy this type of casual leisure by sitting, strolling,
napping, lying down, and the like. Also to be considered relaxation is the
practice of idly driving around town or through the countryside for the
purpose of savouring the passing sights. When motivated by the need for
repose, boat, aircraft, and equestrian tours can be similarly classied.
In passive entertainment, the diversion or amusement is delivered to its
consumers, where the principal action required of them is to arrange for its
delivery (e.g. by opening the book, turning on the television set, inserting a
compact disc into the player). In truly, passively consumed diversion, however
– live entertainment, television programme, video or audio recording, or genre
of written material (e.g. book, article, horoscope) – there is, at most, only
minimal analysis of or need to concentrate on its contents. People simply take
in what they perceive, seeing it as something to be enjoyed for its own sake quite
apart from any desire or obligation to study it in some way. When approached
from the nonanalytic orientation of pure enjoyment, the category of passive
entertainment subsumes an enormous variety of activities. But, to the extent
that people become actively involved with the activity, such as through analysis
or concentration, they drift towards the sphere of active entertainment.
In ‘active entertainment’, as the term implies, the participants must act to
ensure their own diversion. Relatively simple activities such as riddles,
puzzles, party games, children’s games, and games of chance are among the
many examples of this type of casual leisure. But when participation in active
entertainment requires a signicant level of skill, knowledge, or experience, it
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ceases to be casual leisure. Depending on the activity in question, it is now
better described as a hobby or an amateur activity.
Sociable conversation and sensory stimulation
According to Simmel (1949), the essence of sociable conversation lies in its
playfulness, a quality enjoyed for its intrinsic value. Sociable conversation
guarantees the participants maximization of such values as joy, relief, and
vivacity; it is a democratic activity in that the pleasure of one person is
dependent on that of the other people in the exchange. Because it is a
noninstrumental exchange between persons, sociable conversation is des-
troyed when someone introduces a wholly personal interest or goal and
maintained when all participants exhibit amiability, cordiality, attractiveness,
and proper breeding.
Sociable conversations can spring up in a wide variety of settings at any
time during a person’s waking hours. They often develop in such public
conveyances as buses, taxis, and aeroplanes. Waiting rooms (e.g. emergency
rooms, dentists’ ofces) and waiting areas (e.g queues, bus-stops) may beget
sociable conversations among those with no choice but to be there. Still,
possibly the most obvious as well as the most common occasion for sociable
conversation springs not from these adventitious events, but from planned
ones such as receptions, private parties, and after-hours gatherings. Of
course, to the extent that these get-togethers become instrumental, or
problem-centred, as they can when work or some other obligation insinuates
itself, their leisure character fades in proportion.
Turning to sensory stimulation, it is evident that human beings are aroused
by a tremendous diversity of things and activities, among them creature
pleasures, displays of beauty, satisfying curiosity, thrills of movement, and
thrills of deviant activity. People relish their creature pleasures by engaging in
activities where they have sex, eat, drink, touch, see, smell, hear, or feel
coolness or warmth. Drug use intended to produce pleasant alterations of
mood and perception as centred on such effects as vertigo, hallucinations, and
mood elevation is another example of this type of casual leisure.
The displays of beauty may be natural, as found in water, clouds,
mountains, or forests, or human-made, as found in art, reworks, archi-
tecture, or landscaped terrain. People satisfy their curiosity through casual
leisure when they window-shop, watch passers-by, tour museums, and
observe birds and animals (which might also be observed for their natural
beauty), among many other ways. Finally, the thrills of movement encompass
such breath-taking experiences as raft rides, ‘joyrides’, carnival rides, and
bungee jumping while those of deviant activity are generated through such
immoral pursuits as streaking, vandalism, and shoplifting (see later section on
deviant leisure).
Combined types
It is likely that people pursue the six types of casual leisure in combinations
of two and three at least as often as they pursue them separately. For instance,
every type can be relaxing, producing in this fashion play-relaxation, passive-
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entertainment-relaxation, and so on. Various combinations of play and
sensory stimulation are also possible, as in experimenting with drug use,
sexual activity, and thrill seeking in movement. Additionally, sociable
conversation accompanies some sessions of sensory stimulation (e.g. drug use,
curiosity seeking, displays of beauty) as well as some sessions of relaxation
and active and passive entertainment, although such conversation normally
tends to be rather truncated in the last two.
Hedonism and other rewards
This review of the types of casual leisure reveals that they share at least one
central property: all are hedonic. More precisely, all produce a signicant level
of pleasure for those who participate in them. It follows that terms such as
‘pleasure’ and ‘enjoyment’ are the more appropriate descriptors of the rewards
of casual leisure in contrast to terms such as ‘satisfaction’ and ‘rewardingness’,
which best describe the rewards gained in serious leisure. At least, the serious
leisure participants interviewed by the author were inclined to describe their
involvements as satisfying or rewarding rather than pleasurable or enjoyable.2
Still, overlap exists, for both casual and serious leisure offer the hedonic
reward of self-gratication (the activity is fun to do), even though it is
considerably more prominent in the rst than in the second.
Moreover, my own observations of casual leisure suggest that hedonism, or
self-grati cation, although it is a principal reward here, must still share the
stage with one or two other rewards. Thus, any type of casual leisure, like any
type of serious leisure, can also help re-create, or regenerate, its participants
following a lengthy stint of obligatory activity. Furthermore, some forms of
casual and serious leisure offer the reward of social attraction, the appeal of
being with other people while participating in a common activity. Never-
theless, even though some casual and serious leisure participants share certain
rewards, research on this question is likely to show that the former experience
them in sharply different ways when compared with the latter. For example,
the social attraction of belonging to a barbershop chorus or a company of
actors with all its specialized shoptalk diverges considerably from that of
belonging to a group of people playing a party game or taking a boat tour
where such talk is highly unlikely to occur.
The fundamentally hedonic nature of casual leisure explains, in part, why
this kind of leisure fails to produce a sense of optimal experience for its
participants, at least when estimated according to the strictest application of
Csikszentmihalyi’s (1990, pp. 49–67) eight components of ow. Missing from
the casual leisure activities, the enjoyment of which requires virtually no skill
and only minimal knowledge, is the component of feeling competent to
execute them. To generate ow, the activity must present a substantial
challenge for those participating in it who, when in ow, feel competent to
execute it.3Further, some casual leisure activities – e.g. games of chance,
carnival rides, some sociable conversations – lack to a signicant degree the
component of feeling in control over the way those activities are unfolding.
Whatever a participant’s level of competence, that person is unable to express
21Casual leisure: a conceptual statement
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it when lacking control in this sense. Thus, in the nal analysis, so far as
leisure in general is concerned, ow in its pure form is felt only in one sector
of it, in certain serious leisure activities, an observation that squares with
research by Csikszentmihalyi and LeFevre (1989) showing that ow and
satisfaction are more likely to be found in work than in leisure.
Deviant leisure
Most deviant leisure ts the description of tolerable deviance. Although its
contravention of certain moral norms of a society is held by most of its
members to be mildly threatening in most social situations, this form of
deviance nevertheless fails to generate any signicant or effective communal
attempts to control it (Stebbins, 1996c, pp. 3–4). Tolerable deviance
undertaken for pleasure – as casual leisure – encompasses a range of deviant
sexual activities including cross-dressing, homosexuality, watching sex (e.g.
striptease, pornographic lms), and swinging and group sex. Heavy drinking
and gambling, but not their more seriously regarded cousins alcoholism and
compulsive gambling, are also tolerably deviant and hence forms of casual
leisure as are the use of cannabis and the illicit, pleasurable, use of certain
prescription drugs. Social nudism has also been analysed within the tolerable
deviance perspective (all these forms are examined in greater detail in
Stebbins, 1996c, chaps. 3–7, 9).
In the nal analysis, deviant casual leisure is rooted in sensory stimulation
and, in particular, the creature pleasures it produces. The majority of people
in society tolerate most of these pleasures even if they would never think, or
at least not dare, to enjoy themselves in these ways. In addition, they actively
scorn a somewhat smaller number of intolerable forms of deviant casual
leisure, demanding decisive police control of, for example, incest, vandalism,
sexual assault, and what Jack Katz (1988, chap. 2) calls the ‘sneaky thrills’
(certain incidents of theft, burglary, shoplifting, and joyriding). Sneaky thrills,
however, are motivated not by the desire for creature pleasure but rather by
the desire for a special kind of excitement: going against the grain of
established social life.
Beyond the broad domains of tolerable and intolerable deviant casual
leisure lies that of deviant serious leisure, composed primarily of aberrant
religion, politics, and science. Deviant religion is manifested in the sects and
cults of the typical modern society, while deviant politics is constituted of the
radical fringes of its ideological left and right. Deviant science centres on the
occult which, according to Truzzi (1972), consists of ve types: divination,
witchcraft–Satanism, extra-sensory perception, Eastern religious thought, and
various residual occult phenomena revolving around UFOs, water witching,
lake monsters, and the like (see Stebbins, 1996c, chap. 10 for further details).
In whichever form of deviant serious leisure people participate, they will
nd it necessary to make a signicant effort to acquire its special belief system
as well as to defend it against attack from mainstream science, religion, or
politics. Moreover, here, the person will discover two additional rewards of
considerable import: a special personal identity grounded, in part, in the
22 R.A. Stebbins
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unique genre of self-enrichment that invariably comes with inhabiting any
marginal social world.
Conclusion
The importance of casual leisure
The importance of casual leisure extends far beyond its theoretical function as
the counterpart of serious leisure. First, it appears that very few people
completely eschew casual leisure, whereas a great many people seem to do all
they can to nd it. So it is those who participate in serious leisure who are in
the minority rather than their casual leisure cousins. This is so for good
reason as, from time to time, people must rest, get away from it all, or
recharge themselves to execute life’s many obligations better. Furthermore, it
was mentioned in the Introduction that even serious leisure enthusiasts value
their periods of casual leisure. Rojek’s (1995) description of postmodern
leisure as predominantly casual is consistent with this line of reasoning.
But – and this is the second point – it is certainly not valid to treat casual
leisure as synonymous with mass or popular leisure, for many of the casual
leisure activities in postmodern times are notable for generating their own
highly specialized and exclusive ‘tribes’. Maffesoli (1996) describes these tribes
as fragmented groupings left over from the days of mass consumption,
groupings with their own tastes and lifestyles. In this regard, they share some
common ground with the groupings that have grown up around many of the
serious leisure activities. Yet, even though it is true that the types and forms of
casual and serious leisure vary widely as to the breadth of their appeals – many
more people watch television than go in for bungee jumping or raising dogs –
all tribalized leisure contributes in its own way to the structural and cultural
organization of the community. Mass leisure, to the extent that it encompasses
the leisure fads and fashions appealing to great, undifferentiated segments of
the population, cannot, by denition, make such a contribution.
Third, playing and dabbling at an activity can give rise to new ideas
(DeBono, 1967). Casual leisure appears to be the main source of serendipity
in modern life, the quintessential form of informal experimentation, acci-
dental discovery and spontaneous invention. This contrasts with exploration,
which is a purposive, systematic, pre-arranged undertaking. In serious leisure,
amateur comics, artists, and scientists, for example, routinely explore,
whereas in casual leisure, players, sociable conversationalists, and seekers of
sensory stimulation do not. Thus, whereas the rst group occasionally
discovers by serendipity, it is the second group who only discovers by this
process and, for that reason alone, may do so with signicantly greater
frequency. Leisure, as Charles Brightbill (1961, pp. 177–178) once observed,
is the institution in modern society most capable of engendering creativity
and inventiveness. Research could well show that casual leisure is at least as
creative and inventive as serious leisure.
Fourth, casual leisure has enormous economic import, since the bulk of the
leisure industry caters to interests of this nature. The size of the industries
23Casual leisure: a conceptual statement
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serving such serious leisure elds as golf, tennis, sport shing, and downhill
skiing are hardly negligible. But they nonetheless pale into insignicance
when compared with the size of those serving the vast casual leisure publics
presently enamoured of, for instance television and social drinking.
In short, casual leisure also has its place in the sun. True, there is much to
be gained from comparing it with serious leisure, and such comparisons
should continue to be effected wherever appropriate. But to treat casual
leisure as a residual whose only use is to further the denition of one aspect
or another of serious leisure is to miss the opportunity to explore a leisure
world rich in unique properties of its own. For example, the set of rewards
motivating casual leisure – they are regeneration, social attraction, and
selfenrichment – yet it appears to be smaller than the set motivating serious
leisure, is still well worth exploring for the similarities and differences
separating the six types and their principal subtypes.
In this sense the present article carries forward the theme of its predecessor
on serious leisure published 15 years ago. The theme is that leisure should
also be viewed in another way, as other than a unitary phenomenon to be
examined in great sweeping, generic analyses (e.g. research using un-
differentiated lists of activities, theory purporting to explain all leisure) which
has been a dominant analytical and theoretical approach in leisure studies for
many years (c.f. Hemingway, 1995, pp. 42–43; Roberts, 1994, p. 7). Rather,
if we want to identify and understand their distinctive qualities, serious and
casual leisure and their types and subtypes must be studied as separate, albeit
occasionally related, sets of activities. This is the main reason for distinguish-
ing these two broad forms of leisure in the rst place.
Acknowledgement
I wish to thank Allan D. Olmsted for his comments on a draft of this article.
Notes
1. It is possible, of course, that some participants once had a signicant
level of skill and training in the casual leisure in question, but these have
atrophied to the point where they feel their participation is now more
casual than serious.
2. This distinction between pleasurable/enjoyable and satisfying/ reward-
ing, although it appears to be valid in the commonsense world of leisure
participants, is not recognized in the social psychology of leisure. In this
eld, enjoyment is regarded as one possible correlate of ow, well-being,
or even leisure in general. See, for example, studies by Haworth and Hill
(1992) and Haworth and Drucker (1991).
3. Just how much challenge – moderate or extreme – is required before
ow is experienced is presently the subject of research. See Haworth and
Evans (1995) for a review of the literature on this question.
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