2018 Volume 22 Issue 1 Pages 19-36
The purpose of this study was aimed to qualify the effects of recreation specialization on subjective happiness and leisure satisfaction in Marine sports and Recreation. Specifically, semi-structured interviews with 19 experienced scuba divers were employed to investigate recreation specialization formation process and the effect of recreation specialization on subjective happiness and leisure satisfaction. Statements supporting the effects of scuba diving importance and centrality on subjective happiness were recognized, but there are no concrete statements that subjective happiness can increase in the recreation specialization formation process were provided. Therefore, the causal relationship between recreation specialization and subjective happiness was not upheld. Nevertheless, it was mentioned that leisure satisfaction kept increasing in the formation process of recreation specialization. More specifically, leisure satisfaction continued to improve in the process of recreation specialization based on their leisure participation. This result provided an implication of the causal relationship between recreation specialization and leisure satisfaction. In the process of recreation specialization, participants may change their purposes of scuba diving to reduce the feeling of boredom, which helped them to maintain the level of leisure satisfaction, which provided support the previous literature (Ateca-Amestoy et al., 2008) suggesting that the decline of leisure satisfaction by feeling of boredom.
