137 International Journal of Sport Studies. Vol., 4 (2), 137-145, 2014 Available online at http: www.ijssjournal.com ISSN 2251-7502 © 2014; Science and Research Publications Evaluation of attitudes of individuals towards leisure time activities in different cultures: Ankara-London case BEYZA M. AKGÜL * , İ. FATİH YENEL Gazi University School of Physical Education and Sports * Corresponding author, E-mail: bmakgul@gazi.edu.tr Abstract The purpose of this study is to investigate attitudes towards leisure activities in different cultures as the example of London and Ankara. 221 volunteer state university students who have studied in London and 462 volunteer state university students who have studied in Ankara, totally 683 students, were participated to the study. 631 participants were accepted to the study (Ankara 427 students, London 207 students). First part of the data colection instrument consisted of demographic variables. As a second part, Leisure Attitude Scale (LAS) was employed to gather the data after conducting validity and reliability study of LAS in the coverage of this study. Descriptive statistics, multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVA), analysis of variance (ANOVA) were conducted to analyze the data. The findings suggest that although there is a significant relationship between leisure attitudes of participants in Ankara and gender, there is no significant difference about age, income and belief. On the other hand, there is a significant relationship between leisure attitudes of participants in London and age; and there is no significant difference about gender, income and belief. Key Words: Attitude, Leisure Time, Leisure Attitude Introduction Today attitudes of individuals show specific changes and developments throughout the world. In other words, factors such as increase of urbanization rate, development of technology day by day and the effect of mass communication tools make changes in attitudes of individuals. Attitude is generally attributed to an individual and defined as a tendency which regularly forms his thoughts, emotions and behaviors about a psychological object (Kağıtçıbaşı et al., 2010). These tendencies are products of the society he is included and his own socio-cultural environment. People can display similar attitudes with other people by adapting to this environment. The subject of attitude can be anything (concrete-abstract) and also can be leisure time ( İnceoğlu, 2000). Attitudes of individuals towards leisure time is quite important both for developed and developing countries. Since attitude, which is an invisible concept, causes specific visible behaviors, leisure time attitude of individuals can be understood as a result of observing these behaviors. This situation emerges in different ways in different countries, because people reflect the rules, beliefs and values of culture they are affiliated to their attitudes and behaviors. In developed countries, people become more and more interested in having more qualified way of living as the level of economic welfare increases. According to the results of 2002 General Household Research carried out in England which is a developed country, it is seen that individuals participate in various physical, cultural-artistic activities and it can be said that individuals have an active recreational life (Turkish Statistics Institution, 2011). When data of Turkey Statistics Institution (TÜİK) are considered, it can be understood that people living in Turkey generally have passive recreational life (Turkish Statistics Institution, 2011).