John Neulinger

Neulinger died at home of a heart attack at the age of 67 on June 20, 1991, in Dolgeville, New York. Since his death, colleagues in the field of leisure studies have referred to Neulinger as a "leisure visionary".

Neulinger was a member of the International Sociological Association, the American Psychological Association, the Gerontological Society, and Phi Beta Kappa. He helped found the Academy of Leisure Sciences and was president of the Academy from 1982–1983. Neulinger was Director of the Leisure Institute in his home town of Dolgeville, New York, and helped found and chaired the Society for the Reduction of Human Labor.

Neulinger's leisure theory, sometimes referred to as the Neulinger paradigm, was first published in his 1974 book, The Psychology of Leisure. The theory is a continuum model of leisure, with the criterion a condition Neulinger calls perceived freedom. This perceived freedom is a state of mind where one freely chooses to perform an activity—any activity—because one "wants to do it". If an individual is involved in an activity that offers only intrinsic reward and perceived freedom, that person is said to be at leisure. However, if the activity involves only extrinsic reward and the absence of perceived freedom, leisure is not present. Neulinger described six states: Pure leisure, leisure-work, leisure-job, pure work, work-job, and pure job.

From 1964–1965, Neulinger was a research associate for the Russell Sage Foundation in New York City. After 1967, he spent the rest of his life working at the City College of the City University of New York: as an assistant professor from 1967–1971; an associate professor from 1972–1976; and finally as a professor of psychology from 1977–1986.

In the late 1960s, Neulinger and Miranda Breit were one of the first leisure researchers to use attitudinal data instead of participation data to define activity clusters. They published their attitudinal analysis as "Attitude Dimensions of Leisure" in the Journal of Leisure Research.

Having survived the war, Neulinger became a naturalized citizen in the United States. Neulinger attended Hunter College and graduated in 1960. He received his doctorate in psychology from New York University in 1965. Neulinger married Josephine Levitus on July 22, 1950, and later had one son, Ronald. In 1970 the couple divorced. He later married fellow psychologist Gabrielle Stutman.

John Neulinger (April 26, 1924 - June 20, 1991) was a noted German-American psychologist and Professor Emeritus of psychology at City College of New York. Neulinger is best known for contributing a social psychological theory of leisure to the field of leisure studies. Neulinger's theory of leisure is defined by a psychological state of mind that requires two criteria for leisure: perceived freedom and intrinsic motivation. In Neulinger's theory, individuals can be said to be in a state of leisure if they simply perceive that they have the freedom to choose activities and are motivated by an activity for its own sake, not just for its consequences. Neulinger first popularized his ideas in the 1974 book, The Psychology of Leisure.