Nightlife establishments include bars, pubs and nightclubs. These establishments are available from the late evening into the early hours of the morning. They are continuously flourishing all over the world. Thriving researches have existed in the western countries especially in Europe; yet in the east, we are still left behind. Questions regarding the existence of this social phenomenon are yet unanswered.
We try to address this issue by conducting twenty-four semi-structured interviews in the southern cities of Taiwan such as Tainan and Kaohsiung. Results include the motivation of people which answers the ‘why’, as well as the preferences or ‘which kind of’. Results also deliver explanations to the impressions and appraisals of people who frequent these establishments, such as importance, risks, expense, advantage and disadvantages.
Although the answers from different interviewees reveal a colorful area to be studied, this thesis focuses on the feelings and emotions that customers and owners of nightlife establishments feel. At the end of the research, we realize the development of a theoretical framework to explain the phenomenon. Moreover, self-indulgence and mirror neuron mechanism is introduced to explain a portion of this social phenomenon.

Ahn, H., & Picard, R. W. (2005). Affective-cognitive learning and decision making: A motivational reward framework for affective agents. Paper presented at the The 1st International Conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction. October 22-24, 2005.
Alonzo, R. (2006). The upstart guide to owning and managing a bar or tavern. Wokingham, Berkshire: Kaplan Publishing.
Aronson, E., & Aronson, J. (2011). Readings About The Social Animal (11 ed.). New York, USA: Worth Publishers.
Asubonteng, P., McCleary, K. J., & Swan, J. E. (1996). SERVQUAL revisited: A critical review of service quality. Journal of Services Marketing, 10(6), 62-81.
Bellis, M. A., Hughes, K., & Lowey, H. (2002). Healthy nightclubs and recreational substance use from a harm minimisation to a healthy settings approach. Addictive Behaviors, 27(6), 1025–1035.
Bochner, A. P., & Ellis, C. (2002). Ethnographically speaking: Autoethnography, literature, and aesthetics. Oxford, England: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc.
Bowers, K., & Sidebottom, A. (2010). Customer perception of safety and risk. Unpublished Working Paper. Design Against Crime Research Centre, University of the Arts London and UCL Jill Dando Institute of Security and Crime Science.
Carman, J. M. (1990). Consumer perceptions of service quality: An assessment of the SERVQUAL dimensions. Journal of Retailing, 66(1), 33-55.
Charmaz, K. (2006). Constructing grounded theory: A practical guide through qualitative analysis. California, USA: SAGE Publications Inc.
Clapp, J. D., Holmes, M. R., Reed, M. B., Shillington, A. M., Freisthler, B., & Lange, J. E. (2007). Measuring college students' alcohol consumption in natural drinking environments: Field methodologies for bars and parties. Evaluation Review, 31(5), 469-489.
Cooper, K., & Macfarland, C. (2011). Clubbing together: The hidden wealth of communities (Publication., from ResPublica: http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/Clubbing-Together-The-Hidden-Wealth-of-Communities-
Corbin, J., & Strauss, A. (1990). Grounded theory research: Procedures, canons, and evaluative criteria. Qualitative Sociology, 13(1), 3-21.
Currie, R. R. (1997). A pleasure-tourism behaviors framework. Annals of Tourism Research, 24(4), 884–897.
Denzin, N. K., & Lincoln, Y. S. (1994). Handbook of qualitative research. California, USA: Sage Publications, Inc.
Engineer, R., Phillips, A., Thompson, J., & Nicholls, J. (2003). Drunk and disorderly: A qualitative study of binge drinking among 18- to 24-year-olds. Retrieved. from http://www.drugslibrary.stir.ac.uk/documents/hors262.pdf.
Erenberg, L. A. (1944). Steppin' out: New York nightlife and the transformation of American culture. Connecticut, USA: Greenwood Press.
Fier, B. (1993). Start and run a money-making bar (2nd ed.). New York, USA: McGraw-Hill Professional.
Foley, R., & Dismore, H. (2007). Running a bar for dummies. New Jersey, USA: John Wiley & Sons.
Gill, J., & Johnson, P. (2002). Research methods for managers (Third Edition ed.). London: SAGE Publications Ltd.
Gordon, R. G. (1999). The International Library of Psychology: Personality. London: Routledge.
Goulding, C., & Shankar, A. (2011). Club culture, neotribalism and ritualised behaviour. Annals of Tourism Research, 38 (4), 1435–1453.
Graham, K., Bernards, S., Osgood, D. W., & Wells, S. (2006). Bad nights or bad bars? Multi-level analysis of environmental predictors of aggression in late-night large-capacity bars and clubs. Addiction, 101(11), 1569–1580.
Grazian, D. (2011). On the make: The hustle of urban nightlife. Chicago, Illinois: University Of Chicago Press.
Hollands, R., Chatterton, P., Byrnes, B. C., & Read, C. (2004). The London of the north? Youth cultures, urban change and nightlife in Leeds, Twenty-first Century Leeds: Geographies of a Regional City. Leeds, UK: University of Leeds.
Hopkin, J., Sykes, W., Groom, C., & Kelly, J. (2010). A qualitative study of drinking and driving: Report on the literature review. London: Department for Transport.
Hudson, S. (2000). The rave: Spiritual healing in modern western subcultures. Anthropological Quarterly, 73(1), 35-49.
Kahn, R. L., & Cannell, C. F. (1957). The dynamics of interviewing. New York: Wiley.
Kim, W. C., & Mauborgne, R. (2005). Blue ocean strategy: How to create uncontested market space and make competition irrelevant. Massachussetts, USA: Harvard Business Press.
Krauss, S. E., Hamzah, A., Omar, Z., Suandi, T., Ismail, I. A., Zahari, M. Z., et al. (2009). Preliminary investigation and interview guide development for studying how Malaysian farmers' form their mental models of farming. The Qualitative Report, 14(2), 245-260.
Martin, L. L., & Tesser, A. (1992). The construction of social judgments. New Jersey, USA: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc.
Maxwell, J. A. (2005). Qualitative research design: An interactive approach (2 ed. Vol. 41). California, USA: SAGE Publications Inc.
Meyer, D. Z., & Avery, L. M. (2009). Excel as a qualitative data analysis tool. Field Methods, 21(1), 191-112.
Miron, A., & Brown, D. R. (2006). The professional bar and beverage manager's handbook: How to open and operate a financially successful bar, tavern, and nightclub. Florida: Atlantic Publishing Group Inc.
Ngesan, M. R., & Karim, H. A. (2012). Impact of night commercial activities towards quality of life of urban residents. Social and Behavioral Sciences, 35(1), 546-555.
Northcote, J. (2006). Nightclubbing and the search for identity: Making the transition from childhood to adulthood in an urban milieu. Journal of Youth Studies, 9(1), 1-16.
Papez, J. W. (1937). A proposed mechanism of emotion. Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry, 38(4), 725-743.
Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V., & Berry, L. (1985). A conceptual model of service quality and its implications for future research. Journal of Marketing, 49(1), 41-50.
Parker, J. (2009). A labour market review of the pubs, bars and nightclubs industry [Electronic Version]. Licensed Hospitality, from http://www.bii.org/home
Parkinson, B., Fischer, A., & Manstead, A. S. R. (2004). Emotion in social relations: cultural, group, and interpersonal processes. New York: Psychology Press.
Parks, K. A., Miller, B. A., Collins, R. L., & Zetes-Zanatta, L. (1998). Women’s descriptions of drinking in bars: Reasons and risks. Sex Roles, 38(9-10), 701-717.
Peters, J. (2012). Measuring the economic impact of nightlife. Retrieved October 5, 2012. from http://rhiresource.org/study/Overview.pdf.
Police, N. Y. C. (2011). Best practices for nightlife establishments. Retrieved. from www.nyc.gov/nypd.
Reynolds, S. (1998). Energy flash: A journey through rave music. London: Picador.
Rizzolatti, G. (2005). The mirror neuron system and its function in humans. Anat Embryol, 210(5), 419-421.
Rizzolatti, G., & Craighero, L. (2005). Mirror neuron: A neurological approach to empathy. In J.-P. Changeux, A. Damasio, W. Singer & Y. Christen (Eds.), Neurobiology of Human Values (pp. 107-123). New York: Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
Russell, D. A., Lewis, D. S., Matthijsse, D. M., & Masson, D. K. (2011). Revealing alcohol narratives: A qualitative study of young people's relationships with alcohol in County Durham and Darlington. Retrieved. from http://www.dur.ac.uk/resources/anthropology/research/marg/FINALREPORT-11NOV11AR.pdf.
Saint-Exupéry, A. D. (1943). Le Petit Prince. France: Gallimard.
Saunders, M., Lewis, P., & Thornhill, A. (2007). Research methods for business students (4th ed.). New Jersey, USA: Prentice Hall.
Saunders, M., Lewis, P., & Thornhill, A. (2009). Research methods for business students (5th ed.). England: Pearson Education Limited.
Skinner, H., Moss, G., & Parfitt, S. (2005). Nightclubs and bars: What do customers really want? International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 17(2), 114-124.
Sternberg, R. J., Mio, J., & Mio, J. S. (2009). Cognitive psychology (5th ed.). California, USA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
Strauss, A. L., & Corbin, J. M. (1990). Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory procedures and techniques. Calfornia, USA: SAGE Publications Inc.
Strauss, A. L., & Corbin, J. M. (1998). Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory. California, USA: SAGE Publications Inc.
Zanna, M. P. (1991). Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 24). California, USA: Academic Press Inc.