Toward conceptual advancement of costs and perseverance within the serious leisure perspective

Research into the phenomenon of serious leisure has grown over the past 30 years. Despite exponential growth in the popularity of the serious leisure perspective, some embedded concepts remain conceptually underdeveloped. Drawing on previous studies, as well as our own empirical research, this paper examines three perceived anomalies in the serious leisure perspective. First, this paper challenges the position that serious leisure participants persevere only occasionally. Second, this paper critiques the profit hypothesis concept and its utility in explaining ongoing participation despite the presence of costs. Third, this paper makes a case for the amalgamation of the concepts of costs and perseverance within the serious leisure perspective, and constraints and constraint negotiation within the broader leisure studies literature. Future research and scholarly debate is required, focused explicitly on the potential for amalgamative action between these two concurrent, yet conceptually related, bodies of knowledge within the leisure field.