Work and Leisure

164 Schneider, Ainbinder, Csikszentmihalyiin leisure. As expected, we also found that for each leisure activity the meanstress score of high stress individuals remains significantly higher than that oflow stress individuals. In other words, leisure does not seem to erase thehigher level of stress reported by high stress individuals. Still, we wondered ifleisure pursuits might have more psychological benefit for high stress as comparedto our low stress individuals because they provide safer, more relaxingopportunities compared to work situations.To determine whether leisure activities did lower stress and improve mood,we compared the low and high stress group by their mean z-scores. Findingsindicated that pursuing leisure activities decreased mean z-score stress morefor the high stress than the low stress group, but the difference was onlysignificant when respondents were engaged in more passive and solitaryleisure activities, that is, when watching movies (p