Non-consciously processed physical activity for survival versus consciously deliberated exercise for health

Humans evolved to become dependent on physical activity for their survival, but they have not evolved to exercise today. Because survival in modern society is heavily reliant on conscious thinking, most people (54%) have evolved away from physical activity and become occasional exercisers. This transition from non-conscious to conscious processing prevents people from capitalizing on evolution’s wisdom for survival and wellbeing as they consciously deliberate on the utility of health practices to achieve certain outcomes (e.g., weight loss). Unlike in early times, people today have a choice of not engaging in physical activity and yet surviving. As a result, they struggle with the question whether the gains from exercising are greater than losses from not doing it, weighing positive gains and losses against negative gains and losses. Such conscious deliberations, however, can easily be overridden by solving cognitive dissonance (e.g., “exercise is good for my health” vs. “I don’t exercise”) through conscious rationalizations and non-conscious dismissal. Today’s exercise problem can only be solved by individually acquiring the mindset of early times of evolution when the initiation of physical activity was largely a matter of non-conscious thoughts and feelings

Museums as restorative environments

Restorative environments possess a combination of attributes that facilitate recovery from mental fatigue. Most previous research in this regard has focused on natural environments, but this paper explores the extent to which museum environments also provide access to restorative experiences. Visitors (307 tourists and 274 local residents) to a history museum, an art museum, an aquarium, and a botanic garden completed a questionnaire regarding the restorative qualities and benefits of the environment they visited. The findings indicate that for some people, museums are at least as restorative as natural environments. The paper contributes to the development of a theoretical understanding of museums as restorative environments and provides insights into the factors that facilitate and enhance restorative experiences. Such experiences have the potential to contribute to visitors’ well-being and satisfaction

Personal identity (de)formation among lifestyle travellers: A double-edged sword?

This article explores the personal identity work of lifestyle travellers – individuals for whom extended leisure travel is a preferred lifestyle that they return to repeatedly. Qualitative findings from in-depth semi-structured interviews with lifestyle travellers in northern India and southern Thailand are interpreted in light of theories on identity formation in late modernity that position identity as problematic. It is suggested that extended leisure travel can provide exposure to varied cultural praxes that may contribute to a sense of social saturation. Whilst a minority of the respondents embraced a saturation of personal identity in the subjective formation of a cosmopolitan cultural identity, several of the respondents were paradoxically left with more identity questions than answers as the result of their travels

Applying the 3M Model of personality and motivation to adventure travelers

More than a decade has passed since the Travel Industry Association investigated adventure travel as a promising market. Despite growth in the adventure industry, studies of adventure travelers remain scarce, particularly in the identification of the psychological underpinnings of consumer adventurers. Mowen’s (2000) 3M Model of Motivation and Personality provided an organizing framework to explain the psychological roots of adventure tourism behavior. Self-administered questionnaires were mailed to a random sample (N=1000) of National Geographic Adventure magazine subscribers with a response rate (n=339) of 34%. Guttman Scaling Procedure was employed to categorize respondents in hard and soft adventure traveler categories as a context for understanding the demographic and travel behavior characteristics. The personality trait interest in cultural experiences was a consistent predictor of adventure travel propensity for hard and soft adventure traveler groups. The traits need for arousal and need for material resources were significant predictors for the hard adventure traveler group, while competitiveness was the other trait found to be a significant predictor for the soft adventure traveler group. Findings of this study enhance knowledge and understanding of the relationship between personality and tourism behavior

Urban tourist precincts as sites of play

This chapter examines the urban tourism precinct as an organised space for playful forms of leisure in the city. We argue that these spaces create an environment for leisured interaction where both visitor and host engage as mutual actors in urban playgrounds. The chapter commences with a conceptual overview of the urban tourism precinct. It then considers the notion of play through an analysis of selected seminal discourses. These discourses are linked to the precinct in the context of a play space within the city using data gathered from two studies conducted in The Rocks and Darling Harbour precincts in Sydney, Australia (Hayllar and Griffin 2005, 2006). The chapter concludes with a discussion on the implications for the design and management of urban tourism precincts

Effects of situational variables on the physical activity profiles of elite soccer players in different score line states

The aims of this study were to investigate the effects of playing position, pitch location, team ability and opposition ability on the physical activity profiles of English premier league soccer players in difference score line states. A validated automatic tracking system (Venatrack Ltd.) was used to track players in real time (at 25Hz) for total distance covered, high speed running distance and sprint distance. This is the first study to include every team from an entire season in the English premier league, resulting in 376 games, 570 players and 35’000 rows of data from the 2011-12 season being analysed using multi-level modelling. Multi-level regression revealed an inverted “u” shaped association between total distance covered and goal difference (GD), with greater distances covered when GD was zero and reduced distances when GD was either positive or negative. A similar “u” shaped association was found with high speed distance covered at home. In addition distance covered (both at home and away) were predicted by playing position. All activity profiles (with the exception of sprint distance at home) were predicted by pitch location and time scored. Lastly, distance away from home and high speed running at home were predicted by opposition ability. Score line appears to effect player activity profiles across a number of temporal factors and thus should be considered by managers when preparing and selecting teams in order to maximise performance. The current study also highlighted the need for more sensitive score line definitions in which to consider score line effects

Cultural experience tourist motives dimensionality : a cross-cultural study

This empirical research of tourists&rsquo; cultural experiences aims to advance theory by developing a measurement model of tourists&rsquo; motives towards attending cultural experiences for samples of Western and Asian tourists visiting Melbourne, Australia. Drawing upon Iso-Ahola&rsquo;s (1989) seeking/avoiding dichotomy theory for tourist motivation dimensions, the hypothesized dimensions primarily included escape and seeking-related dimensions, and some hedonic dimensions because of their relevance to aesthetic products (Hirschman &amp; Holbrook, 1982; Holbrook &amp; Hirschman, 1982), which are the context for this study. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were used to crossvalidate the underlying dimensionality structure of cultural experience motives. A four-factor model was extracted from the EFA consistent with some theoretical formulations and was retained in the CFA. Specific cultural language group differences for the motive dimensions were also hypothesized between Western and Asian tourist samples, and within the Chinese- and Japanese-speaking Asian tourist samples, but not within the different cultural groups of English-speaking Western tourists. These cross-cultural hypotheses were tested for the motive dimension measurement model using invariance testing in CFA. The findings for the motive dimensions differing by cultural group were not as expected. Significant cultural differences between Western and Asian tourists were not found, but a new finding of this study was significant differences between English-speaking tourists in their motives for attending cultural experiences. Marketing implications of these findings are also presented.<br /