The Passions of Future Cultural Animators

Introduction: The profession of a cultural animator is often described in the literature as a job for “enthusiasts” that should be performed by people who love what they do. Observations of cultural animators in practice and their statements show that this is exactly the case. However, it seems interesting to investigate the status quo empirically. Research Aim: The aim of this study was to determine how future socio-cultural animators perceive the characteristics of their passion in terms of its development, harmony with other life activities and personal benefits resulting from the pursued passionate activity. Research Method: The applied research design was the diagnostic survey method using the Passion Self-Report Inventory (ISP), a tool developed by Byra and colleagues. Results: The vast majority of the responding cultural animation students have a passion, and all of them declare to have a potential “alternative” passion. Most of these are arts-related passions. The vast majority of respondents to some extent believe that the source of their passion is their own exploration, although the strength of these beliefs suggests that the influence of the social environment is almost as important. Future animators manage to maintain a relative balance between their favorite activity and other life activities, and obtain significant personal benefits resulting from having a passion. Conclusion: It can, therefore, be stated that the obtained results present cultural animators as true enthusiasts as defined in the Dualistic Model of Passion, with a predominance of the harmonious component, studying mostly in accordance with their preferred interests and gaining many personal benefits, such as motivation for development, inspiration, a sense of meaning and freedom. This allows us to assume that in the future they will not only meet one of the most important theoretical criteria for performing this difficult occupation, but will also be protected against many negative consequences of providing services based on intensive interpersonal communication.