Literature review highlights themes to conceptualize the interplay between outdoor adventures and subjective well-being This systematic literature review curated research publications that examined subjective well-being outcomes associated with outdoor adventures. The research team, based in the UK and Germany, defined outdoor adventures as “participating in nature-based outdoor adventure tourism or recreational activities which may be challenging and may include perceived or real risk.” They were interested in documenting key research concepts in this academic literature in order to form a research-based conceptual framework that explains how participating in outdoor adventures can contribute to people’s subjective well-being. Their overarching goal was to illustrate how people can enhance their well-being through outdoor adventuring and to help scholars identify fruitful research agendas related to outdoor recreation and tourism.
The study adopted a systematic protocol to search academic data bases and include/exclude relevant studies. Their search included peer-reviewed articles and book chapters published between 1990 and 2021 that included approved keywords related to outdoor adventure activities, well-being, and benefits. They narrowed down an initial corpus of 4036 publications to 125 articles and chapters that met the research team’s pre-approved inclusion criteria. The research team then divided up these studies to conduct open coding that identified key words and phrases in each publication’s abstract, introduction, methodology, and findings sections. Their thematic analysis then developed codes and sub-codes to illustrate prominent themes and interrelationships between outdoor adventure participation and subjective well-being. This inductive analysis allowed the research team to propose a research-based framework to explain how outdoor adventures may benefit participants’ subjective well-being.
Their thematic analysis of 125 research publications yielded five intertwined meta-themes that account for key relationships between social well-being and participating in outdoor adventure recreation and tourism: (1) extraordinary experiences, (2) physical and mental balance, (3) personal development, (4) immersion and transformation, and (5) community. In addition, each meta-theme included several sub-themes with a total of 16 sub-themes across all five meta-themes: (Extraordinary Experiences) natural highs, transcendental experiences and awe, optimal flow and peak experiences; (Immersion and Transformation) rhythm of nature and resonance, human/nature, deceleration and mindfulness, anti-structural experiences and liminality; (Personal Development) learning and knowledge development, flourishing, individual identity; (Physical and Mental Balance) mental health and emotional balance, coping and resilience, challenge and risk, physical health; (Community) beneficence, collective identity.
Based on their analysis and subsequent research synthesis, the research team proposes that participants in outdoor adventures can gain, maintain, and enhance their subjective well-being in dynamic natural settings where they experience one or more of the subthemes within one or more of the five meta-themes. Thus, their research-based framework can help outdoor recreation and tourism practitioners (1) gain valuable insights to conceptualize subjective well-being in outdoor adventure contexts, (2) better understand the needs and motives of their clients, and (3) embed key thematic concepts in the design and marketing of their adventure experiences. In addition, Personal Development was the most frequently cited meta-theme followed by immersion and transformative experiences, physical and mental balance, extraordinary experiences, and lastly community. The authors argue this does not mean that personal development is more important than community benefits of outdoor adventure participation; rather, it points to more and less studied areas, which might encourage scholars to target under-researched themes and concepts. For example, they recommend more research on the Physical and Mental Balance meta-theme and mental health and emotional well-being subtheme, which are less studied in the outdoor adventure field. Similarly, researchers tend to focus on more extreme adventure activities rather than newer forms of outdoor adventure participation, such as slow adventure holidays and micro-adventures. In addition, they call for more studies of the Coping and Resilience sub-theme and the Beneficence subtheme of Community, which is another under-researched aspect of subjective well-being that stems from participation in outdoor adventure activities. Finally, they recommend studies that pay more attention to the cultural contexts of outdoor adventures, especially since most research in this area has focused on so-called developed countries and more privileged participants.
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