RESEARCH NOTE
Forced Family Fun: What If Someone Does Not Want to Be There?
We could not find any research under the name "forced family fun". Four studies touch the idea behind it, and they point one way: shared time goes with good results mainly when the people in it want to be there.
A label with no research of its own
People say "forced family fun" as a joke. We searched for research under that name and could not find any. That is a statement about our search, not proof that none exists.
What we found is four studies that bear on the idea behind the joke. Each asks, in its own way, whether it matters that people want to be there. For three of the four we read the published summary, called the abstract, and not the full paper. We say so each time.
Chosen time and default time
One study followed 192 families in which both parents worked. Each family had a mother, a father and two teenage siblings. The researchers phoned them on seven days to ask how they had spent their time, then checked in again two years later (Journal of Marriage and Family, 2004). We read the summary of this study, not the full paper.
The main result looks good for family time: "For firstborns, higher levels of family time at Time 1 predicted less involvement in risky behavior 2 years later, controlling for Time 1 risky behavior."
Then comes the qualifier: "The pattern of results suggests that family time is protective when chosen by family members but not when it represents a default use of time."
In plain words, time together looked helpful when the family picked it. It did not look helpful when it was just what happened because nobody did anything else. Note what the sentence does not say. It does not say default time did harm. It says the protection was not there. The main result is also for firstborn children only.
An activity one partner dislikes
The second study is about married couples, not whole families. It followed a group of couples "for over a decade", used diaries to record what they did, and asked each spouse how much they liked each activity (Journal of Marriage and Family, 2002). We read the summary, not the full paper. The summary does not give the number of couples.
The authors found that "the association between companionship and satisfaction is less robust than previously believed, and that it depends on how often spouses pursue activities that reflect their own and their partner's leisure preferences."
They also reported this: "Over time, involvement in leisure liked by husbands but disliked by wives, whether as a couple or by husbands alone, is both a cause and a consequence of wives' dissatisfaction."
This is the one finding here that fits the word "backfires". Doing things the wife disliked went with her becoming less happy, even when the couple did them together. The words "cause and a consequence" are the authors' own. They rest on the order in which things happened over the years, not on an experiment.
Wanting to share
The third study is also about couples. It had 196 people in one part and 83 couples followed for three months in another (Personal Relationships, 2014). We read the summary, not the full paper.
Its conclusion: "shared activities sustain relationship quality only when partners are responsive and want to share relationship activities."
The word "only" matters there. In this study, doing things together was not enough without the wanting.
The same evening, three experiences
The fourth study we read in full. Mothers, fathers and young teenagers in 55 families carried pagers for a week and reported how they felt whenever the pager went off (Journal of Leisure Research, 1997).
- "Mothers reported less positive affect than fathers." Positive affect means good mood.
- "Adolescents experienced lower intrinsic motivation and less positive affect than parents during family leisure." Intrinsic motivation means wanting to do the thing for its own sake.
- In the detailed results, the teenagers' average motivation was below zero in four of the five kinds of family leisure measured.
The study is small, covers one week in the 1990s, and all 55 families were European American.
What researchers say about their own field
A 2017 review, read in full, of the most used framework in family leisure research warned that "there may be an implied consensus among these findings that family leisure is an inherently positive and rewarding experience for all family members" (Leisure Sciences, 2017).
Where this leaves the idea
- Thin evidence. Four studies, three read as summaries only, two about couples and not families.
- No test of forcing. Nobody assigned some families to required game nights and others to chosen ones. These studies watched what happened and did not change anything.
- "Backfires" is stronger than most of the findings. Three of the four show a benefit that is missing or a mood that is lower. One shows a spouse growing less happy.
- A consistent direction. In all four, wanting to be there is tied to how the shared time turned out.
The World Health Organization's guideline on early childhood builds the same point into its definition of play: "Defined as being for its own sake (without a specific goal), voluntary, a special activity (out of the ordinary), enjoyed by participants, governed by rules (implicit or explicit) and imaginative." (WHO, 2020). On that definition, an activity nobody chose is missing one of the things that makes it play.
The full picture
This page covers one question. The whole verdict on the saying, with its history and every source, is in our research paper: A family that plays together stays together: is it true?