Leisure Motivation Scale
Also known as: LMS, Beard & Ragheb Leisure Motivation Scale, Leisure Motivation Inventory, Four-Motive Leisure Scale
The Leisure Motivation Scale (LMS), developed by Jacob Beard and Mounir Ragheb in their 1983 Journal of Leisure Research article, measures the psychological and social reasons people give for participating in leisure. Building on Maslow's need theory and the leisure-needs literature, the scale reduces leisure motivation to four broad motives, each represented by twelve items: the intellectual motive (mental activity — learning, exploring, imagining), the social motive (friendship and interpersonal relationships, including the need for esteem), the competence-mastery motive (achievement, challenge, and the testing of skills), and the stimulus-avoidance motive (the drive to escape and to seek rest, solitude, and relaxation). Administered to 1,205 respondents and refined by item and factor analysis, the four subscales achieved reliabilities near .90 and became, alongside the companion Leisure Satisfaction Scale, the most widely used motivation measure in leisure studies and tourism.
Key highlights
- Parsimonious four-motive structure that applies across virtually any leisure or tourism activity, maximizing comparability.
- High subscale reliabilities near .90 from a large 1,205-respondent development sample, with a broadly replicable factor structure.
- Theoretically grounded in Maslow's need hierarchy and the leisure-needs literature, giving the motives clear conceptual meaning.
- Proven, portable basis for motive-based market segmentation in recreation, tourism, and event research.
Intuition
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How it works
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When to use it
Use the Leisure Motivation Scale when you need a compact, validated measure of why people participate in leisure, organized around four broad and broadly applicable motives. It suits market segmentation of recreationists and tourists, explaining activity and destination choice, comparing motivation across groups or cultures, and supplying a motivation covariate in studies of satisfaction, constraints, or participation. The four-motive structure is a strength when parsimony and comparability matter and when the goal is general motivational tendency rather than fine-grained, setting-specific desired outcomes. It is less appropriate when the research demands the diagnostic detail of many specific outcomes (where the REP scales fit better), when the construct of interest is realized satisfaction rather than motivation (the Leisure Satisfaction Scale), or when motivation is habitual and not readily articulated. Cross-cultural use should be preceded by re-validation, since the four-factor structure, though robust, can shift across contexts.
Strengths & limitations
- Parsimonious four-motive structure that applies across virtually any leisure or tourism activity, maximizing comparability.
- High subscale reliabilities near .90 from a large 1,205-respondent development sample, with a broadly replicable factor structure.
- Theoretically grounded in Maslow's need hierarchy and the leisure-needs literature, giving the motives clear conceptual meaning.
- Proven, portable basis for motive-based market segmentation in recreation, tourism, and event research.
- Four broad motives sacrifice the fine-grained detail of instruments like the REP scales, limiting diagnostic specificity.
- Stated reasons for participation are subject to social-desirability and self-presentation biases.
- The four-factor structure, while robust, does not always replicate cleanly across cultures and activities without re-validation.
- Motivation is treated as a relatively stable trait, so the scale captures a snapshot and not situational or shifting motives within an episode.
Common pitfalls
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Applications
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Frequently asked
What are the four motives the LMS measures?
Intellectual (engaging in leisure for mental activity — learning, exploring, creating), social (for friendship, interpersonal relationships, and the esteem of others), competence-mastery (to achieve, master, challenge, and compete), and stimulus-avoidance (to escape over-stimulation and seek rest, solitude, and relaxation). Each motive is measured by twelve items, and the four subscale scores form a person's motivation profile. The motives derive from Maslow's need hierarchy and the leisure-needs literature.
How does the LMS relate to the Leisure Satisfaction Scale?
They are companion instruments by the same authors measuring different constructs. The Leisure Motivation Scale captures why people pursue leisure — their reasons and needs, ex ante, across four motives. The Leisure Satisfaction Scale captures the rewards people perceive they obtain from leisure, after the fact, across six components. They are commonly used together, since satisfaction tends to be higher when leisure fulfills the motives that drove participation, but each is scored and interpreted on its own.
Can the Leisure Motivation Scale be used outside recreation, for example in tourism?
Yes. Because the four motives are broad and not tied to any particular activity, the scale travels well into tourism and event contexts. Ryan and Glendon's 1998 study applied it to segment tourists by motive and relate motivation to satisfaction. When porting the scale to a new domain or culture, however, you should revalidate its four-factor structure and reliability in the new sample, since the structure can shift across contexts.
Sources
- 1.Beard, J. G., & Ragheb, M. G. (1983). Measuring Leisure Motivation. Journal of Leisure Research, 15(3), 219-228.
- 2.Ryan, C., & Glendon, I. (1998). Application of leisure motivation scale to tourism. Annals of Tourism Research, 25(1), 169-184.
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Cite this page
ScholarGate. (2026, June 23). Leisure Motivation Scale. ScholarGate. https://scholargate.app/sport-leisure-studies/leisure-motivation-scale