ABSTRACT
Leisure literature is replete with well-reasoned arguments supporting the notion that leisure identities offer individuals opportunities to both become and find their true selves (Argyle, 1996; Haggard and Williams, 1992; Kelly, 1983; Shamir, 1992; Stebbins 1992b). Undoubtedly, such personal attainment is boosted by leisure’s ability to encourage action and behaviour that is driven by perceptions of choice and intrinsic interest. Indeed, it is these qualities that separate leisure from many other life domains. In addition to the personal identity virtues that leisure brings to an individual (such as fulfilment and meaning), there is a further purpose related to its ability to emit the right type of messages of ourselves to the right type of people. Our leisure choices not only have the potential to realise who we truly are, but also to communicate to others a more informed sense of who we are as well as who we would ideally like to be. Therefore leisure identities act as a means to communicate particular individualities about ourselves that would not normally be obvious in other social contexts. However, to what extent such leisure pursuits genuinely reflect our interests, and in doing so our characters, is unclear. Leisure as a potential source of deception has received scant attention in the literature which is curious given the abundance of studies that have focussed upon fraudulent impression management strategies undertaken in everyday life (Bednar et al., 1989; Buss and Briggs, 1984; Goffman, 1959). As a consequence this chapter aims to explore in what ways fabricated leisure identities can be used by individuals to influence others’ impressions of them. It is hoped that the discussions and propositions mapped out below will not only shed light on a hitherto unexplored facet of leisure but will also encourage further empirically led research.
