An exploration of serious leisure types, flow and successful aging in later life

This study examined how different types of serious leisure activity are associated with experiencing flow and successful aging. Older adults ages 60 and over participated in this study and participants were recruited from senior related programs in the Champaign County area. In all, 162 surveys were distributed in total and among them, 113 surveys were used in this study because some people completed the survey incorrectly or did not answer some questions. Cluster analyses were used to classify the types of serious leisure activity. Then, univariate analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was used to examine the differences among the different serious leisure types regarding flow and successful aging. Thereafter, the relationship between flow and successful aging was investigated with multiple regression. Serious leisure was classified into five different clusters:1) physically and socially-centered stimulating activity, 2) cognitively-centered stimulating activity, 3) diversely low stimulating activity, 4) diversely high stimulating activity and 5) cognitively and socially-centered stimulating activity. While there were some significant differences between different types of serious leisure activity regarding seriousness of leisure activity and frequency of flow, the results indicated that there was no significant difference in terms of quality of flow and successful aging. Also, results indicated that the quality of flow accounts for variance in successful aging. These study results offer some insights regarding older adults??? serious leisure and their relationships to flow and successful aging