Impacts of Outdoor Activities, Demographic Variables and Emotional Intelligence on Life Satisfaction: An Econometric Application of a Case in Turkey

The purpose of this study is to examine and explain the impacts and directions of some outdoor activities as cycling, trekking
and mountaineering/rock climbing and the other determinants as emotional intelligence (EQ), age, gender, marital status, education,
monthly income, and occupation on life satisfaction (LS) level by linear regression model in Turkey. The Sampling group of
this study consists of 1,719 persons who are mountaineers/rock climbers (n = 426,

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_age = 36.12 ± 10.10), cyclists (n = 373,

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_age = 31.36 ± 9.73), trekkers (n = 382,

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_age = 39.92 SD = 10.30) and non participants in outdoor activities (n = 538,

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_age = 31.78 ± 11.47). The exact number of mountaineers/rock climbers, cyclists and trekkers in Turkey is not known. In this study,
sampling has been applied and an electronic questionnaire form has been sent to all members of mountaineering and cycling
clubs under Turkish Mountaineering Federation and Turkish Cycling Federation. All the received survey answers have been assessed.
Non participants of outdoor activities were selected randomly. To determine the EQ and LS level of Turkish mountaineers/rock
climbers, cyclists, trekkers and the persons who are not interested in any of the outdoor activities, the Satisfaction with
Life Scale which was developed by Diener et al. (J Person Assess 49:71–75, 1985) and during the assessment of EQ dimensions the scale by Chan (Pers Individ Differ 36: 1781–1795, 2004; Teach Teach Educ 22:1042–1054, 2006) was utilized. This study is a descriptive and a definitive research which uses Regression Model for LS and in order to analyze
the data, the descriptive statistics such as frequency (f), percentage (%), average (M) and standard deviation (SD) were performed.
As a result of this study, it was found that being a participant in outdoor activities as cycling, trekking and mountaineering/rock
climbing, having a high monthly income, and being a woman, being coupled and/or married, being occupied, capability on emotion
assessment and positive emotional management have positive impacts on LS and being a man, being single, being older, and emotions
positively have negative impacts on LS.