Cindy Hartman

I am an Associate Professor in Recreation Management and Policy at the University of New Hampshire.

My research focuses on the relationship between identity development and free-time experiences and pursuits (e.g., including organized recreation programming, informal learning, leisure pursuits) across major developmental transitions during late adolescence, emerging adulthood, and young adulthood. I seek to understand how youth and young adults plan for their futures and pursue lives of meaning through educational, career, family, and recreational pursuits while incorporating and balancing societal and cultural influences about who to be and how to live. In other words, I seek to understand how individuals manage autonomy (freedom from constraints vs. freedom to flourish) while maintaining connection across the lifespan. By using psychosocial and narrative approaches to understand identity development, my ultimate goal is to support individuals in their identity processes and create potential for positive identity outcomes, including future orientation, well-being, and life satisfaction. I seek to work with youth-serving educational, workforce organizations, and recreation/wellness programs to improve programs and services for young people at these important life transitions.

My specific research aims include:
• Utilizing and promoting psychosocial and narrative identity models/theories in research on free-time experiences and pursuits (e.g., including organized recreation programming, informal learning, leisure pursuits)
• Understand balancing free-time experiences and pursuits with academic, work, and family identities
• Develop and promote free-time experiences and pursuits to support identity development and subsequent future orientation, well-being, and life satisfaction