The integration of work and play in healthy adulthood

The purpose of this study was to explore issues related to the integration of work and play in the lives of apparently healthy adults. Action patterns related to changes in emotional experience were emphasized, within both short-term diurnal patterns of experience and long-term longitudinal patterns of career change.

A modified phenomenological method was used to gather and analyze data for this research. Procedures included selection of a sample of 12 adults radically biased in the direction of high levels of emotional health, and stability, success, gratification, and fulfillment in work activities, as subjectively judged by the investigator. The sample consisted of six men and six women divided into two groups of three men and three women each. One group had pursued a single career, and the other group had made a major change of careers out of personal preference. Data was gathered through semi-structured interviews of one to two hours' duration with each subject. Key questions were asked, but each subject was permitted to freely create much of the interview structure. Audio tapes of the interviews were transcribed and summarized, then analyzed phenomenologically with an emphasis on the relations between action patterns and changes in feeling. Patterns of work and play activity were examined as they relate to changes in feelings about work.

The major findings of the research were that positive feelings about work were associated with success in personally valued, often playful work tasks, and that negative feelings about work were moderated in association with personally valued, playful activities separate from work. This principle was demonstrated in short-term variations of experience, as well as long—term career changes in which increased positive feelings about work were associated with career changes characterized by a specific type of work transition. This type of work transition consisted of a shift in activity from adult work to personally valued, highly playful activity separate from work, such as that encountered in schooling.

The discretionary shift from one valued action to another can decrease negative feelings related to failure increase positive feeling, self—esteem, and playful activity. However, such shifts conflict with intense commitment to a single most valued activity, in relation to which success brings extremes of positive feeling, play, and high self-esteem, and failure brings extremes of negative feeling and low self-esteem.