In the US, one in seven leisurely moments comes with guilt | BPS

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Stress and anxiety, Work and occupational<br>In the US, one in seven leisurely moments comes with guilt

A new study explores the experience of ‘leisure guilt’.<br>11 August 2026<br>By Emily Reynolds

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Leisure is good for us — we know this. Taking time to relax, socialise, or enjoy a hobby can boost wellbeing and help us recover from the demands of everyday life. But for some people, free time brings an unwelcome companion: guilt about not being productive.<br>Writing in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Hyunjin J. Koo and colleagues propose that this conflict reflects a previously understudied construct that they term 'leisure guilt'. Across four studies, they investigate who experiences this guilt, when it arises, and how it could undermine the restorative effects of relaxing.<br>The team began by creating a short questionnaire to measure how prone people are to feeling guilty about spending time on leisure instead of work. Across three studies involving more than 1,000 US adults, they developed a brief questionnaire designed to measure leisure guilt and explored how people's scores related to their wellbeing, personality, and attitudes towards work and rest. In the third study, they tested whether the measure captured a stable tendency by asking participants to complete it twice, two weeks apart.<br>Their findings suggested that leisure guilt is not just a passing feeling. People who scored highly on the measure of leisure guilt consistently enjoyed their leisure less, were significantly more likely to feel they had too much free time, and reported higher levels of stress and anxiety. Crucially, this couldn't be explained by personality or a general tendency to feel guilty, suggesting it reflects a distinct way of thinking about productivity and rest.<br>The researchers then used the questionnaire in a week-long study of everyday life. More than 300 US adults completed the questions before receiving prompts on their phones up to six times a day over the next week. Each time, participants described what they were doing, who they were with, how they felt, and, during leisure activities, whether they felt guilty about it. Altogether, the researchers collected more than 11,000 real-time reports.<br>Overall, participants spent 57.1% of their time engaged in leisure activities and reported feeling guilt during 14.3% of these moments — around one in seven times. Guilt was more common among women than men, in younger than older adults, and in people with relatively lower socioeconomic status. Context also mattered: participants were more than twice as likely to experience guilt while spending time alone than while socialising (18.9% compared to 9.0%).<br>Those who were most prone to leisure guilt also struggled to switch off. They reported feeling guilty during almost a third (29.3%) of the times they were engaged in rest compared with just 4.0% among those least prone to it — and as a result spent less time on leisure activities overall and got less out of them, reporting lower happiness and more negative emotions while relaxing.<br>The team suggests that leisure guilt develops when broader cultural messages about the importance of being productive become internalised. When people believe they should be working rather than relaxing, they argue, leisure may no longer feel restorative, reducing many of the wellbeing benefits it would otherwise bring.<br>It's worth noting that all of the participants were from the US, where cultural attitudes towards productivity may differ from elsewhere in the world. Future research could also investigate whether such guilt can be reduced, and whether doing so improves people's enjoyment of their free time.<br>Read the paper in full:<br>Koo, H. J., Piff, P. K., Götz, F. M., Stieger, S., & Shariff, A. F. (2025). Leisure Guilt. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 01461672261462977. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672261462977<br>Want the latest in psychological research, straight to your inbox?<br>Sign up to Research Digest's free weekly newsletter.

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