It is generally agreed that the first steps in pursuing happiness consist of satisfying the basic needs (physiological, safety and financial). But in addition to these lower-order or material needs, people have needs of a higher order, such as self-esteem, social relations and self- actualization (e.g., Maslow, 1943). This means that economic and other basic satisfactions are only one aspect of the pursuit of happiness. The other aspect, often ignored by politicians, deals with psychological needs and their satisfactions. Like Tolman (1941), Campbell (1976), and many others, the author asserts that Western societies should cease to be dominated by the concept of the economic person and be replaced by the concept of the psychological person. This follows because the pursuit of happiness is not promoted by the oversatisfaction of economic, materialistic, and other basic needs. This conclusion is not simply a matter of personal value judgments, because the verdict of empirical research is the same: money cannot buy happiness (Shaver and Freedman, 1976). In a similar vein, Campbell (1976) reported a steady decline in personal happiness from 1957 to 1972 while at the same time most of the economic indicators registered considerable improvement. The message then is clear: promising and delivering more and better cars in garages and more and better chickens in pots does not ensure happiness.
Better to understand the pursuit and achievement of happiness, discussion will now turn to research on determinants of the perceived quality of life. In this analysis, particular attention is directed to the independent and the joint contributions of job and leisure satisfaction to the perceived quality of life. But before beginning a review of relevant research, it should be pointed out what is meant by the quality of life. The most important fact to note is that the quality of life is in the mind. No matter how much or little a person owns or does, he can be happy and satisfied with the life if he so decides; Material things do not determine decisions about happiness, psychological well-being, or the quality of life. It is the individual whose own perceptions (though influenced by those of others) underlie the personal definition of the quality of life. While many objective facts (owning a car, environmental pollution, etc.) may affect the quality of life, it is the individual who decides and determines the importance of such contributing factors to his quality of life. The psychological meaning of the objective facts of life is more critical to the perceived quality of life than is their economic function. The person whose quality of life is high can be characterized as one with feelings of happiness, life satisfaction, and psychological well-being.
Because men and women have been working since the beginning of the human race, both reason and experience corroborate that work must be related to the quality of life. That is, job satisfaction must be positively associated with life satisfaction. Indeed, this assumption is well borne out by empirical research (e.g., Argyle, 1972; Kornhauser, 1965; Rogers, 1977; Warr and Wall, 1975). The question then is what aspects of job satisfaction contribute to the quality of life. As noted above, the first step in pursuing the quality of life is to satisfy the lower-order needs. Having a permanent job which brings in enough money to satisfy basic human needs is a prerequisite to attempts to gratify such higher-order needs as self-esteem and self-actualization. To this end, satisfaction with the material aspects of work (e.g., pay) should correlate positively with life satisfaction, and in fact this correlation has been confirmed (Hulin. 1969; Iris and Barrett,1972). However, it may be argued that pay and other extrinsic aspects of work are essential but not necessarily sufficient conditions for attaining the high quality of life. In other words, there is a certain maximum point, a threshold, in job and life satisfaction, to which salary and other extrinsic rewards can contribute. In direct support of this contention, Kenwick and Cawler (l978) found that, "If pay falls below this (threshold) level, then money becomes more important than interesting work. If wages or salary are above this level, then whether they consider their job interesting assumes more importance." In a similar vein, Shaver and Freedman (1976) concluded, based upon a survey of about 52,000 respondents, that money cannot buy happiness.
What is critical for increasing life satisfaction after the threshold level is attained, is the psychological meaning of work. For work to attain its level as a personally meaningful activity it must be intrinsically motivated. As demonstrated earlier (chapter 11), intrinsically motivated activities can be characterized principally by perceived freedom or control and feelings of competence. The importance of these factors to job and life satisfaction has been demonstrated in numerous studies (e.g., Renwick and Lawler, 1978). It is fairly obvious that when basic human rights (perceived freedom and control over life, perceived responsibility and perceived competence) are denied at work, a person becomes dissatisfied and even depressed with such work. Factory workers serve as a persuasive example of persons whose basic human rights have been impaired or denied. They must arrive and leave their place of employment at a prescribed time; they are not allowed to exercise any control over their work except to perform the same repetitive and monotonous task; they are given no responsibility in their work, but instead are told to carry out their mentally unsatisfying and unchallenging tasks efficiently; they are seldom given indications or recognition of their competence to carry out their tasks, except the weekly or monthly standard salary; and of course, they are rarely given an indication that their work is important or needed. If a person is to continue to work under such dehumanizing conditions, he has to adapt to these circumstances. That millions of people have indeed so adapted is not surprising in the light of people's capacity to overadapt to almost any dehumanizing situations (Dubos, 1965). Such adaptation is reflected by the observation that workers are more satisfied with their jobs, the longer they have been working (Taylor, 1977), and by the fact that "those who have given up any thoughts of advancing beyond the assembly line appear to have better mental health than those who are still hoping for something better in life" (Iris and Barrett, 1972, p.303). Thus, it is paradoxical, even contradictory, that their adaptation to work is psychologically both demeaning and healthy. But the problem is that people are willing to go too far in their adaptation, and in this process, they are led to accept values that are not characteristically human (Proshansky, 1973).
The question why people are able to overadapt to dehumanizing work conditions can only be answered in psychological terms, specifically by the idea of compensation. Those individuals whose work is not intrinsically rewarding can compensate for this deprivation by emphasizing extrinsic aspects of their jobs and by denying the importance of intrinsic values of work. They may say: "I get paid $15 per hour, I don't have to care about anything else in my work." Another way of compensating. is to spend one's free-time in intrinsically rewarding activities. However, this behavioral compensation through actual participation can simply be substituted for cognitive compensation. That is, workers are cognitively aware that they are free to participate in any activities they wish, and it is this cognitive awareness of the possibility for intrinsically motivated leisure that may be sufficient to compensate for many people's dehumanizing work.
Despite some of its psychological virtues, adaptation to work is no substitute for an intrinsically motivated job in its contribution to job and life satisfaction. Russell (1930, p. 212) contended that "the exercise of skill" and "construction" are the two chief elements that make work interesting. Empirical research supports this hypothesis. Renwick and Lawler (1978) conducted an extensive survey in which they asked respondents to indicate the degree of importance of each job feature given. The following were the top six qualities, in order of importance: (1) opportunities to do something that makes you feel good about yourself, (2) opportunities to accomplish something worthwhile, (3) chances to learn new things, (4) opportunity to develop your skills and abilities, (5) the amount of freedom you have on your job, and (6) opportunities you have to do things you do best. The amount of pay ranked only as the twelfth most important feature. It might be contended that these results are due to the fact that blue-collar workers were under-represented in the sample. Other studies, however, have revealed similar findings in that "chance to use abilities" in the work is important to the assembly-line workers' job satisfaction and to their mental health (Kornhauser, 1965). It has also been found that low-skilled and unskilled jobs lead to poorer mental health among workers than do skilled jobs (Work in America, 1973), presumably because of lack of opportunities to use abilities in low-skilled jobs. This is consistent with the finding that "assembly workers attach great importance to their role in producing needed, high-quality products" (Nord, 1977). In a similar vein, Iris and Barrett (1972) reported that if workers consider their work important, their life, family and leisure satisfaction are much higher than if they perceive their work as unimportant. Taken together, these results clearly reveal the significance of intrinsically motivated work (specifically, feelings of competence and worthiness ensuing from work) to job and life satisfaction.
It follows from the above findings that the opportunity to exercise freedom and control over work should contribute importantly to job and life satisfaction. This supposition is well borne out by empirical research. Renwick and Lawler (1978) found that within certain limits an overwhelming majority of people would like to be able to set their own working hours. This emphatically supports the efforts of about 1,000 companies and government agencies that are presently implementing the idea of "flextime." Flexible working hours improve not only the workers' job and life satisfaction but also their productivity, by decreasing absenteeism, sick leave, tardiness, and overtime (Stein, Cohen and Gadon, 1976). These positive effects are due to the fact that "flextime'' recognizes a basic human need to exercise control over one's environment, or stated differently, ''flextime treats employees like responsible adults rather than children to be watched" (Stein, et al., 1976). Attribution theorists and researchers (e.g., Heider, 1958; Kelley, 1971), among others, have argued and provided evidence that people have a need or tendency to exercise control over their environment, or to be "originators" rather than "pawns" (deCharms, 1968). Although flextime also contributes indirectly to life satisfaction by allowing workers to juggle their work schedules to accommodate their family duties (e.g., child care) and leisure interests, its primary contribution to life satisfaction stems from the accompanying psychological benefits: increased perceived freedom and control.
In addition to perceived control, the quality of working life and thus overall life satisfaction can be enhanced by increasing employees' perceived responsibility in their work. Following the Western European example, particularly that of West Germany, many companies in the United States strive for job enlargement and enrichment through various programs. One of the most common forms of job enrichment is to provide workers with the opportunity to take part in the various decision-making processes concerning the development of their company and improvement of the work environment. Perhaps the most dramatic result of this experimentation is the finding that workers can set their own wages responsibly when given an opportunity to do so. Lawler (1977) found that the employee-designed pay plans are carefully thought out and conservative in the amount of salary set for oneself, and they tend to increase employees' pay satisfaction, their commitment to the company, attendance, and organizational effectiveness. Thus, it appears that increasing employees' personal responsibility contributes to an improved quality of work life. Lawler concluded that workers "are more likely to trust a system of their own design because they have more control over it. They become committed to it because they have contributed to its development." This conclusion is entirely congruent with our previous discussion in chapters 9 and 11.
Lawler's findings again demonstrate the importance of being able to exercise effective control over one's life, particularly over one's work life. Work can be made a personally meaningful activity if employees' basic human rights are here respected. Unfortunately, all too often this is not the case, as confirmed by Kornhauser's (1965) finding that about 50 percent of assembly-line workers feel that they have little control or influence over the future course of their lives. To this end, his finding that feelings of helplessness, withdrawal, alienation, and pessimism are widespread among workers, is not at all surprising. Clearly, the time has come to treat employees as individuals with the same basic human rights as employers. This means that working conditions should be made conducive to the development of intrinsic work motivation. Hence all jobs should lead to feelings of personal freedom, control, responsibility, and competence. These ingredients of intrinsic motivation are important, not only because of their capacity to improve job satisfaction, but also because of their strong contribution to overall life satisfaction, psychological well-being and mental health.
Perhaps the most common theme running through the literature is an assumption of the positive effect of leisure behavior on life satisfaction (e.g., Davis, 1938; Greenbie, 1940). It is indeed easy to find texts in which authors speculate that leisure satisfaction is the principal source of the perceived quality of life. This, of course, is understandable in the light of the traditional meaning of work. That is, work is done to earn a living, the implication being that quantity of life is a matter of work and quality of life is a function of non-work activities. The importance of leisure to life satisfaction has been recognized, not only by leisure philosophers and authors, but also by other social scientists. For example, under the auspices of a committee (on leisure time and its uses) of the American Psychiatric Association, psychiatrists produced a book (Leisure and Mental Health: A Psychiatric Viewpoint) in which the relationship between leisure and mental health was explored at length.
Predicated upon an assumption of the importance of leisure to life satisfaction, what does the empirical research indicate about this relationship? Although relevant studies are not many, they all support the notion of a positive association between leisure satisfaction and the perceived quality of life (e.g., Campbell, et al., 1976; Flanagan, 1978; Haavio-Mannila, 1971; London, et al., 1977). But to understand the meaning of this relationship it is essential to know what factors contribute to leisure satisfaction. As noted in earlier chapters (Part 5), people , view leisure as optimum when leisure participation is intrinsically motivated. For a person to be able to participate in an activity for its own sake he has to have freedom to choose activities, to be the "origin" (originator) rather than the "pawn" (deCharms, 1968). In addition, intrinsically motivated leisure activities are characterized by accompanying feelings of competence-be it personal or interpersonal. Social norms, extrinsic sanctions and rewards undermine intrinsic leisure motivation and thus leisure satisfaction. Leisure satisfaction cannot be improved merely by increasing the number and variety of services available. It is the individual who, either by himself or with the help of others, has to make some of the available services personally meaningful activities before they can contribute to personal leisure satisfaction. Only intrinsically motivated leisure activities can become personally meaningful ones.
Although it is theoretically possible for any free-time activity to become personally meaningful, there are strong reasons to believe that passive forms of recreation are not likely to do so. Kornhauser (1965) found that workers with high mental health scores were active in their non-work behaviors, whereas workers with the lowest mental health scores tended to be escapist or passive in their free-time engagements, that is, they spent a lot of time in watching television and did not participate in community organizations. Brooks and Elliott (1971) reported that those who learned to derive satisfaction from active forms of leisure in early years were psychologically better adjusted 30 years later than those who learned to derive their leisure satisfaction from passive activities like TV- watching. In a similar vein, Flanagan (1978) found in his nation-wide survey that "active recreation" was one of the six areas showing the largest correlation coefficients with the overall quality of life. Taken together, these findings strongly imply that active recreational participation contributes to the perceived quality of life and psychological well-being.
This is not to deny the recreational value of any specific passive or observational leisure activity, but merely to infer that if a person's leisure behavior pattern is characterized by participation in passive activities, his life satisfaction is likely to be lower than that of the person whose leisure behavior is dominated by active participation. This conclusion, of course, is obscured by the ambiguity of activity and passivity. That is, what is active for one person may be passive for another. This is the case because individuals differ in their need for optimal arousal and incongruity. Nevertheless, it is possible to distinguish between some active and passive forms of leisure. In the Flanagan study, for example, "active recreation" consisted of such activities as playing games, participatory sports, traveling, etc., whereas ''passive recreation" included activities like watching TV and observing sporting events or entertainments.
But why should active recreation be more conducive to life satisfaction than is passive reaction? The answer to this question lies in the idea of optimal arousal and incongruity. As was theorized and as the research has clearly shown ( Part 4), too much or too little arousal and incongruity is detrimental to human functioning. Thus, an individual strives to attain and sustain the optimal level of arousal and incongruity in leisure behavior. The need for this optimum is evident because an individual is seeking both novelty and familiarity, stability and change, variety and similarity in leisure encounters. "Active recreation'' is more consistent with the pursuit of optimal incongruity than is ''passive recreation." While the optimal level varies from individual to individual, some activities provide so little incongruity and arousal that they can meet few people's (if anyone's) need for optimal arousal. Activities categorized as "passive recreation" are such activities (see Flanagan, 1978).
If the above reasoning is correct there should be an inverted-U relationship between the perceived quality of life and/or leisure satisfaction and the level of arousal in leisure participation. That is, life and leisure satisfaction should be at their highest when leisure behavior is optimally arousing or incongruous, and at their lowest when leisure behavior provides too little or too much arousal. This hypothesis is emphatically supported by data based upon a national probability sample of households in 48 states (Campbell, et al., 1976, p. 357). Figure 22 shows the inverted-U relationship between pressure on time use or the availability of discretionary time and life and leisure satisfaction. In other words, people are most satisfied with their life and leisure when they feel they have an optimal amount of discretionary time available for their activities. But when there is a feeling of little time pressure or feeling of plenty of free-time available their satisfaction with leisure and life in general decreases dramatically. A similar decline occurs when they feel too much time pressure to carry on their free-time activities or that too little free-time is available. Clearly, these data indicate that optimally arousing leisure is conducive to psychological well-being. Thus, the data further corroborate our previous theorizing throughout the book about the human need for optimally arousing and incongruous leisure behavior.
The data presented in figure 22 are also important in that the findings are consistent with the idea about a personally meaningful activity as a source of life satisfaction. As the figure shows, having little or nothing to do during free-time results in dissatisfaction with life and leisure. Although the figure does not point this out, it is reasonable to assume that personally meaningful activities are more involving than simply "never rushing, having often time on hands;" in other words, personally meaningful activities are likely to involve an optimal level of time pressure. It is difficult to see how idleness could be personally meaningful activity to anybody. Moreover, since personally meaningful activities are intrinsically motivated, they are participated in for their potential to produce feelings of competence. Certainly, idleness or overabundance of discretionary time does not bring about feelings of personal or interpersonal competence. It appears, therefore, that life satisfaction is significantly derived from intrinsically motivated and optimally arousing leisure activities.
The data in figure 22 also have implications for the concept of
"leisure society.'' Some people have interpreted the idea of a leisure
society to mean that the goal of humankind is to create societies in which
nobody has to do anything. Hence leisure is likened to idleness or just
doing nothing. If the above figure is any indication of human nature it
would appear to indicate that such a society is psychologically lethal.
Every human being is born with an enormous amount and variety of
talent. To prevent or discourage the individual from using personal
capacities and competencies is to deny the meaning of human life.
Therefore, we agree with Argyle who stated:
People will (always) seek activities of a certain kind, whether they are called
work or leisure, because these are the conditions for human satisfaction:
completing interesting and meaningful tasks, which use basic skills and
abilities, giving adequate recognition and social status, performed under
considerate and democratic-persuasive supervision (or no supervision), in
cohesive groups and in small organizations with full participation (Argyle,
1972, p. 262).
If a personally meaningful activity (as defined above) is the main source of life satisfaction, psychological well-being, and mental health, one might ask whether work or leisure is equally important in providing opportunities for the development of such activity. There is empirical evidence in the literature that leisure is gaining in importance and may become the more important of the two in the future. Yankelovich (1978) reported that when Swedish men, 18 to 44 years of age, were asked in 1955, "What gives your life the most meaning-your family, your work, or your leisure?," the following results were obtained: 13% of the respondents rated leisure as giving the most meaning to their life, 33ø% answered work and 45% family. But when the same question was posed to a new cross-section of Swedish men 22 years later (1977), dramatic changes were observed: 27% answered leisure, 17% work and 41% family. Thus, the proportion of men who indicate leisure as the main source of meaning in life had doubled during the 22 years, while the number of men who regarded work as primary source of meaning in life had been reduced to half in the same period. The family was still the most important of the three, though its value had declined slightly. Yankelovich (1978) found the same phenomenon occurring in the American samples, in that only 21 % of the respondents stated work to mean more to them than leisure.
Other researchers have obtained similar results. Campbell, et al. (1976, p. 76) reported that satisfaction with non-work activities was the most important variable of all the satisfaction domains which were related to life satisfaction. Satisfaction with non-work activities explained 29% of the total variance of the index of psychological well-being, whereas work satisfaction accounted for only 18% and "family life" 28%. Based upon a national probability sample, London, et al. (1977) found that when the total sample was considered, feelings about leisure behavior were better predictors of the perceived quality of life than job-related feelings, though both contributed significantly but independently to life satisfaction. There were, however, individual differences in these relative contributions. For example, job-related feelings contributed more to males' perceived quality of life than did leisure-related feelings, whereas the opposite was true for female respondents. But for most sub-groups, the contribution of leisure to life satisfaction was greater than that of job.
When the relative contributions of job and leisure satisfaction to the quality of life are compared, the findings should be interpreted with extreme caution for several reasons. First, the questionnaire items used to assess job and leisure-related feelings and satisfactions are likely to affect the relative importance of work and leisure. London, et al. (1977), for example, found that of all leisure-items, satisfaction with "the things you and your family do together" (r = .37) and with "the things you do and the times you have with friends" (.32) were the two most important items contributing to the perceived quality of life. Had these items not been used, the contribution of leisure satisfaction would have been less than that of job satisfaction. On the other hand, if London, et al., had included items relevant to perceived freedom, control and competence, the relative contributions of work and leisure would have been quite different.
One definite way of increasing the importance of leisure satisfaction over job satisfaction is to include family or marriage satisfaction in the leisure category when the relative contributions are compared (as London, et al. did). Past research has consistently shown that satisfaction with family life is more important to the perceived quality of life than are leisure and job satisfaction (e.g., Campbell, et al., 1976; Medley, 1976; Yankelovich, 1978). The only exception to this rule is unmarried men, as evidenced in the data reported by Haavio-Mannila (1971, p. 593) in Table 2.
The data below are based upon table 5 in Haavio-Mannila's paper (p. 593) and were obtained by averaging the percentages reported separately for urban and rural residents. In this study, 444 urban and 504 rural residents were interviewed and asked to indicate which of the three life sectors gives them presently most satisfaction. It is immediately clear that "family life" is overwhelmingly the main source of life satisfaction to the married, particularly to married women. On the other hand, "leisure activities" become more important to the unmarried, especially to unmarried men, than to the married. A similar trend can be seen with regard to "work." The importance of family life to the quality of life and happiness has also been found in national polls. The Louis Harris poll in 1978 showed that a substantial 92% of the American public stated that family life is very important to the quality of their lives. Finally, Flanagan (1978) reported that "having and raising children" was "important" or "very important" to the quality of life of 83%-93% of the respondents, the exact percentage depending on the age group in question.
Taken together, these results provide indisputable evidence about the strong impact of a gratifying family life on the perceived quality of life. Therefore, if one is to include "family life" as a part of leisure satisfaction when comparing the relative contributions of leisure and job satisfaction to the quality of life, it should not be surprising to find that leisure satisfaction is more important than job satisfaction. Of course, this is not to criticize such an inclusion (because "family life, " for the most part, is experienced during one's free-time), but simply to remind researchers of the probable reason for such findings. The above research demonstrates another fact why it is hazardous to compare directly the relative importance of job and leisure satisfaction, that is, there are considerable individual differences which mediate the relative effects of job and leisure satisfaction on the quality of life. Haavio-Mannila's (1971) findings clearly attest to this by indicating that the relative importance of leisure, work. and family depends on whether a person is married or not. The London, et al. study (1977) revealed the influence of some other individual differences.
Despite these methodological and conceptual problems in comparing the relative contributions of work and leisure satisfaction to life quality, the trend is apparent. More and more people are discovering that free-time can be a source of personally meaningful activities (Yankelovich, 1978). If the trend continues observers will see a steady increase in the proportion of people naming leisure as the main source of meaning in life. This does not mean, however, that people are expecting work to disappear from the scene or become unimportant, as evidenced by Lundberg and Ellonen (1977). When subjects were asked to indicate the likelihood of work becoming unnecessary in the future due to industrial efficiency and automation, the mean probability for women was .19 and .16 for men. Females estimated that it would take about 600 years before work will become totally unnecessary; males were more pessimistic, since they thought that about 1,000 years will elapse before mankind is completely freed from the need to work! But with regard to "meaningful leisure, " the respondents, particularly the men, were much more optimistic. Men estimated that only about 20 years would elapse before the condition (i.e., "meaningful leisure") will occur, whereas women thought it would take approximately 50 years for "meaningful leisure" to materialize.
Another indication of the inevitability of work can be seen in the fact that most people would continue working even if they had enough money to live as comfortably as they would like for the rest of their lives (e.g., Renwick and Lawler, 1978; Rodgers, 1977). This is psychologically understandable for two major reasons. First, since people have worked throughout the history of humankind, work has become a stable institution in the course of years, and therefore it is difficult to break the tradition. Parents keep on emphasizing the necessity of work, if not for any other reason than for the sake of tradition. Once custom is broken, however, it then is easy for parents to introduce their children to the concept of non-work. But until that departure from the need to work is achieved, work will be stressed as essential. Nevertheless, it is apparent that sooner or later one generation of parents will have to accept the idea of leisure as a primary source of personally meaningful activities for their children, a situation which undoubtedly will be painful for the parents to digest. In sum, because of its long history and tradition, work appears to have a psychologically stabilizing effect (Argyle, 1972, p. 260). As Freud (in Martin, 1967, p. 8) wrote, stressing the importance of work is more effective than any other technique in keeping the individual close to reality. Since everyone else seems to be working, a person is connected with reality through the work. Moreover, it is still socially unacceptable not to work, meaning that social pressure makes many people work even though they do not need money.
The second major reason why people would continue to work, even if unnecessary, is because many of them are fortunate in having intrinsically motivating and rewarding jobs. In such cases work has become a personally meaningful activity for them, producing feelings of personal or interpersonal control/ competence, responsibility, worthiness, and rewarded by adequate social recognition. For the reasons noted, there seems to be no avoiding the fact that work will remain for the foreseeable future. In fact, it looks as if work is extremely healthy psychologically. The world of work is an important aspect of reality in modern society, thereby safeguarding people's mental health. But as pointed out earlier, work can become dysfunctional and destructive if the basic human rights are overlooked on jobs. Therefore, it is not enough simply to provide jobs for people. Past research indicated that work should be made intrinsically motivated so that it would become a personally meaningful activity. Since the same holds true for leisure behavior,. one is justified in concluding that intrinsically motivated work and leisure are the main sources of life satisfaction and happiness.
To test this hypothesis a quasi-experiment was conducted (Iso-Ahola, 1977f). In this study, 76 undergraduate students were provided with hypothetical information of the character (intrinsic or extrinsic) of their work and leisure and were then asked to indicate their life satisfaction by answering the question, "In general, how satisfying would you find the way you are spending your life?" (from "not satisfying at all"-1-to ''completely satisfying"-10). In accord with the 2 x 2 (work motivation x leisure motivation) design, subjects were randomly placed in one of the four conditions: (1) intrinsically motivated work- intrinsically motivated leisure, (2) intrinsically motivated work-extrinsically motivated leisure, (3) extrinsically motivated work-intrinsically motivated leisure, and (4) extrinsically motivated work and leisure. For example, subjects who were in the first situation were asked to assume that both their daily work and leisure behaviors are mainly motivated by intrinsic rewards like feelings of competence and self-determination, and then were asked to evaluate their life satisfaction under such condition. The results of the study are presented in figure 23.
It appeared that the "main" effects of both work motivation (p < .03) and leisure motivation (p < .009) were highly significant, meaning that these two variables affected life satisfaction independently and additively. That is, the rating of life satisfaction was much greater when work was predominantly intrinsically motivated than when it was predominantly extrinsically motivated. Similarly, intrinsic leisure motivation significantly enhanced life satisfaction as compared to extrinsic leisure motivation. Thus, life satisfaction was at its highest when both work and leisure were intrinsically motivated and at its lowest when they were extrinsically motivated. Thus, these findings strongly support an earlier contention that intrinsic motivation in work and leisure is the main source of the perceived quality of life and happiness. As shown earlier, intrinsically motivated behaviors are psychologically potent because they provide for feelings of control over life and are conducive to feelings of personal and interpersonal competence. People are in a continual process of seeking and conquering challenges (see chapter 11 ) in a manner which is optimally arousing to them. If the principal spheres of life (leisure and work) offer opportunities for seeking and conquering challenges, it is obvious that people are very satisfied with their lives.
The above findings are also important as indicating that the enrichment of both work and leisure is needed to enhance people's quality of life. The enrichment of leisure is not an alternative to boring and unchallenging work, or vice versa. Based upon the results in figure 23, the author concurs with Gardell's (1976, p. 901) conclusion that ''a change of work to make it more humane and democratic is vital and necessary, but must coincide with a trend toward shorter and more flexible working hours, and a more flexible relation between work-leisure activities considering different needs in different stages in life." For leisure to become a source for personally meaningful activities, it is not sufficient to simply expand leisure facilities. Education and training for leisure is of the foremost importance.
The dilemma of the quality of life and happiness is its relative and changing character. Although much can be done externally to enhance the pursuit of meaningful activities in leisure and work, for psychological reasons many people fail to achieve the state of life satisfaction and happiness. Much of this failure stems from the fact that life quality or happiness is not an absolute entity (which can be said to exist when certain things have been done), but rather a subjective and relative concept. People define their quality of life in terms of expectations and hopes which are chiefly the result of the social environment in which they live. Shaver and Freedman (1976) found that almost 70% of their subjects expected to be happier in the future than at the present time. People seem to revise continuously their definitions and expectations concerning their quality of life on the basis of what they have seen and heard others to have or to be. This revision process, then, is endless as long as human beings are "social animals," one influencing and being influenced by others.
Past research indicates that social comparison indeed is the principal psychological obstacle to achieving life satisfaction and happiness. Shaver and Freedman ( 1976) found that the happiest respondents in their survey were "those who feel in control of their lives, and who compare their progress against their own standards, not those of others. " They concluded that "happiness is a matter of setting personal standards, not chasing after other people's.'' Unfortunately, competitive and achievement-oriented societies encourage individuals to set their personal standards in relation to others, especially in the world or work. Although it is possible to establish and pursue personal standards in the competitive system, these standards have implications for the goals of others. On many jobs, people have to set higher objectives for themselves than they might want to, because otherwise, they would lose their position to someone else. In a competitive system, one person's success is another's failure. When an individual sets personal standards higher than those of others', he forces everybody else to follow him. Once the chain-reaction is started, people keep on revising their standards, and the reaction continues so long as they can tolerate the competitive system.
Thus, the problem with an achievement-oriented system is that it seldom allows one to set standards which have no implications for other people's behavior. If, for example, a person enjoys the work and therefore performs much better than expected and better than other workers, such performance is psychologically threatening to others. Their performance is soon compared to his performance standards, and consequently they are-directly or by implication-forced to revise their norms, even though the individual might have never intended such consequences to result from his intrinsically motivated performance. All too often the same thing can be observed with regard to leisure behavior. It frequently happens that when a person changes standards and goals for leisure (e.g., starts to play tennis), others soon follow this example, because they have to be able to say that they too can do it. Fortunately, however, leisure does not lend itself to such revisions in personal standards due to others' interests as often as does work. When awareness of the potential of leisure in the future increases, then leisure participation may be more and more determined by personal standards having little or no relationship to the personal leisure goals of others.
It appears from the above that a highly competitive system is not conducive to the pursuit of happiness, since it encourages and compels people to conform to the standards of others. But it should not be forgotten that systems are created for people, not vice versa. If so, competitiveness should be lowered to a level which allows for the pursuit of happiness. Herein lies the challenge for social psychologists. The question is how to encourage people to set their personal standards and expectations without reference to the expectations and implications of the norms of others,-how to get people to compare "downward" socially rather than "upward. " In short, how to induce or convince people to be satisfied with what they are and what they have now. (To avoid any misunderstanding, this is not to suggest that people should be taught to be satisfied with the status quo of the prevailing society).
Social psychological research is required to answer these questions. Nobody is perfect, everybody is missing something. Thus, if you are healthy, be happy because millions of people would give everything they have to be healthy. If your family life works, be happy because millions of people are failing and have failed in their marriages. If you have a good job, be happy because millions of people are unemployed. If you enjoy leisure activities, be happy because millions of people are unable to participate in any leisure activity, etc. Your life provides many reasons to be happy; but you will never discover them unless you stop to think of them. Among others, social psychologists are called upon to help people initiate this thinking process and aid them by providing guidelines for setting personal standards for personally meaningful work and leisure activities.
Finally, it should be noted that despite social comparison and competition between people, human beings need each other to maintain and enhance their quality of life. The fact remains that interpersonal relations in one form or another constitute the fundamental pillar of happiness and life satisfaction. Feelings of mutual respect mean much more than any technology can ever provide. This can clearly be seen by the importance people place on interpersonal relations in rating their quality of life. As noted earlier, Haavio-Mannila (1971) found that social interaction in the form of family life is the source of life satisfaction for the overwhelming majority of the married couples. On the other hand, single men and women rate "friends and social life" as the most important pillar of their happiness (Shaver and Freedman, 1976). This evidence leaves little doubt about the critical nature of interpersonal behavior and leisure in relation to the quality of life in modern society.
The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible, friendly rather than hostile (Russell, 1930, p. 157).
The first part of the chapter focused on the pursuit of happiness. It was argued that the concept of "economic person" should be replaced by the concept of "psychological person," because happiness cannot be achieved by oversatisfaction of economic and materialistic needs. Empirical research has shown that money cannot buy happiness. Since the "economic person" is not sufficiently equipped for the pursuit of happiness and because our education system is directed toward the economic person, it follows that the objectives of education should be changed so that they would be derived from the concept of the psychological rather than economic person. As a part of this change, education for leisure should be introduced as an integral part of the school curricula, along with education for intrinsically rewarding work. Better to understand the pursuit and achievement of happiness by the psychological person, the bulk of the chapter was devoted to a review of research on the determinants of the perceived quality of life. To this end, both independent and relative contributions of job and leisure satisfaction to the perceived quality of life were discussed. Past research has shown that in order for a person's job to enhance his life satisfaction, working conditions have to be conducive to the development of feelings of personal freedom, competence, control and responsibility. In a similar vein, intrinsically motivated leisure activities contribute substantially to the perceived quality of life. Although it is theoretically possible for any free-time activity to become intrinsically motivated and personally meaningful one, empirical research has shown that "active recreation" is more likely to accomplish this than passive recreation, and thus to contribute to life satisfaction.
When the relative contributions of work, leisure and family to life satisfaction are compared, it appears that the role of leisure has become increasingly important during the last twenty years. On the other hand, the importance of work and family has declined during the same period, though the family is still the most important of the three. This, combined with the finding that single men and women rate "friends and social life" as the most important pillar of their happiness, leaves little doubt about the critical roles of interpersonal behavior and leisure in relation to the quality of life in modern society.