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The Pay-Offs to Sociability

Do Solitary and Social Leisure Relate to Happiness?

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Abstract

Previous research addressing the association between leisure and happiness has given rise to the hypothesis that informal social activities might contribute more to happiness than solitary activities. In the current study, we tested how the two types of leisure—social and solitary—contribute to a person’s subjective sense of well-being. For the empirical estimate, we used four consecutive quarters of data collected from 533 people over the age of 16, from 13 Tsimane’ hunter-farmer villages in the Bolivian Amazon. Results suggest that only social, not solitary, leisure has a positive and statistically significant association with subjective well-being. The association between solitary leisure and subjective well-being was negligible or negative. Future research should focus on emic definitions of social and solitary time, for solitary time might not always be equivalent to leisure and productive group activities might substitute for social leisure.

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Acknowledgments

Research was funded by a grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research (Gr-7250) and grants from the cultural anthropology program of the National Science Foundation (BCS-0134225 and BCS-0322380). We thank L. Apaza, E. Conde, J. Dávila, H. Rivas, Y. Lobo, P. Pache, E. Tayo, S. Cari, J. Cari, M. Roca, D. Pache, J. Pache, and V. Cuata for help collecting the information and logistical support. Thanks go to James Broesch, Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell, Ian Fitzpatrick, Andrew Gerkey, Peter Giovannini, Ma Ruth Martínez-Rodríguez, José Luis Molina, and Melanie Vento for comments to a previous version and to ICRISAT-Patancheru for providing Reyes-García with office facilities.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. ICREA and Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08193, Bellatera, Barcelona, Spain

    Victoria Reyes-García

  2. Heller School for Social Policy and Management, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, 02454-9110, USA

    Ricardo A. Godoy

  3. ICRISAT, Patancheru, 502 324, Andhra Pradesh, India

    Vincent Vadez

  4. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08193, Bellatera, Barcelona, Spain

    Isabel Ruíz-Mallén

  5. CBIDSI-Centro Boliviano de Investigación y de Desarrollo Socio Integral, Correo Central, San Borja, Beni, Bolivia

    Tomás Huanca

  6. Department of Anthropology, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, 60208, USA

    William R. Leonard & Thomas W. McDade

  7. Department of Anthropology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, 30602, USA

    Susan Tanner

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  1. Victoria Reyes-García
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  2. Ricardo A. Godoy
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TAPS Bolivian Study Team

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Correspondence to Victoria Reyes-García.

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Reyes-García, V., Godoy, R.A., Vadez, V. et al. The Pay-Offs to Sociability. Hum Nat 20, 431–446 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-009-9073-5

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