No abstract

No abstract

Most stigma research examines people who engage in deviant activities or possess visible and permanent discredited attributes, which lead to “hard” or severe consequences. Existing leisure studies focus on the benefits of leisure pursuits. Less attention is paid to the potential costs associated with serious leisure, such as “soft” stigma. The snubs and slight embarrassments resulting from soft stigma may jeopardize the rewards people receive from participating in leisure, such as a sense of identity, self‐worth, and pride. Using interviews with seventy‐four female belly dancers, most of whom belly dance as a form of “serious leisure,” this article examines how dancers manage perceptions that they are erotic dancers. Results show that dancers use an interesting set of stigma management techniques and new forms of some existing management strategies to simultaneously protect themselves and enhance the reputation of the group. Implications for how people negotiate soft stigma associated with serious leisure are discussed.

Overweight youth with symptoms of OSA have a lower QOL both by their report and parental report. Interestingly, objective measures of OSA did not correlate with QOL.

Studies show that religious people tend to be more grateful, yet existing research tends to rely on small, non-representative samples and limited measures of religiosity. Therefore, we use a national sample (the National Study of Youth and Religion) and multiple measures of religiosity to examine the extent to which religion is associated with feelings of gratitude. We find that religious efficacy and having religious friends positively predict the extent to which young adults feel grateful. In contrast, religious affiliation, participation in organized religion, private devotion, religious salience, otherworldly beliefs, and being spiritual but not religious are unrelated to experiencing feelings of gratitude.