earticle

영어

The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between leisure, coping, and stress and the role of coping in the leisure and stress relationship. Individual leisure activities, derived from preliminary survey, were used as unit of analysis. Data was drawn from the students enrolled in a university in Kyungsangbuk-do region. 154 students participated in the study and regression analysis were performed. The results show that TV watching was the only leisure that significantly affected stress. A few, seemingly disconnected leisure activities showed significant effect on coping, which are travel, shopping, date, and taking a nap. Moderating effect of coping was found in a few leisure activities including exercise, date, and eatery hunting and exhibited some consistent pattern: that is, leisure appeared to relieve stress for those who reported higher level of coping effort while leisure tended to increase stress for those who reported lower level of coping effort. In sum, the study suggests that leisure has little effect on stress and some random effect on coping, and does not confirm the popular belief that leisure is an effective coping resource. Also coping played a positive role in leisure's ability to reduce stress, although such effect was found only in limited number of cases. Some interpretations and implications of the study were presented.