A cross-national study of the relationships among leisure participation, basic psychological needs satisfaction in leisure, and global life satisfaction

Although research has examined the relationship between leisure participation and global life satisfaction, it remains unclear what mechanism that underlies this relationship is and how this may differ across national groups. Guided by Basic Psychological Needs Theory (BPNT), we analysed cross-sectional online survey data collected from 206 Japanese and 196 Canadian adults through structural equation modelling. Our results showed that basic psychological needs satisfaction in leisure (i.e. autonomy, competence, and relatedness) mediates the positive relationship between leisure participation and global life satisfaction, and nationality moderated all the above relationships. Our findings suggested that BPNT offers an underlying mechanism for understanding the relationship between leisure participation and global life satisfaction. We employed the concepts of cultural consonance to explicate why these relationships differ across Canadian and Japanese groups. We recommend that leisure practitioners and policymakers actively promote leisure participation while fostering shared cultural models of leisure that underscore leisure’s value and benefits, especially in Japan.