Torrent Flow The Psychology Of Optimal Experience Theory

  1. Flow The Psychology Of Optimal Experience …
  2. Theory Of Flow

His popular 1990 book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience is based on the premise that happiness levels can be shifted by introducing flow. Happiness is not a rigid, unchanging state, Csikszentmihalyi has argued. Top Psychological Flow books. If you are going to buy one book on flow, make it this one. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, 1990, Also recommended: Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, 1997.

Csikszentmihalyi in 2010
Born29 September 1934 (age 84)
Alma materUniversity of Chicago
Known forFlow (psychology)
Positive psychology
Autotelic activities
Scientific career
Doctoral studentsKeith Sawyer

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (/ˈmiːhaɪˈtʃiːksɛntmiːˌhɑːjiː/, Hungarian: Csíkszentmihályi Mihály, pronounced [ˈt͡ʃiːksɛntmihaːji ˈmihaːj](listen); born 29 September 1934) is a Hungarian-American psychologist. He recognised and named the psychological concept of flow, a highly focused mental state conducive to productivity.[1][2] He is the Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Management at Claremont Graduate University. He is the former head of the department of psychology at the University of Chicago and of the department of sociology and anthropology at Lake Forest College.[3]

  • 2Work

Early life[edit]

Csikszentmihalyi was born on 29 September 1934 in Fiume,[4] then part of the Kingdom of Italy. His family name derives from the Csíkszentmihály village in Transylvania.[5] He was the third son of a career diplomat at the Hungarian Consulate in Fiume.[4][6] His two older half-brothers died when Csikszentmihalyi was still young; one was an engineering student who was killed in the Siege of Budapest, and the other was sent to labor camps in Siberia by the Soviets.[6]

His father was appointed Hungarian Ambassador to Italy shortly after the Second World War, moving the family to Rome.[6][7] When Communists took over Hungary in 1949, Csikszentmihalyi's father resigned rather than work for the regime; the Communist regime responded by expelling his father and stripping the family of their Hungarian citizenship. To earn a living, his father opened a restaurant in Rome, and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi dropped out of school to help with the family income.[4][6] At this time, the young Csikszentmihalyi, then travelling in Switzerland, saw Carl Jung give a talk on the psychology of UFO sightings.[6]

Csikszentmihalyi emigrated to the United States from Hungary at the age of 22, working nights to support himself while studying at the University of Chicago.[6] He received his B.A. in 1959 and his PhD in 1965, both from the University of Chicago.[6][8] He then taught at Lake Forest College, before becoming a professor at the University of Chicago in 1969.[6]

Work[edit]

Csikszentmihalyi is noted for his work in the study of happiness and creativity, but is best known as the architect of the notion of flow and for his years of research and writing on the topic. He is the author of many books and over 290 articles [9] or book chapters. Martin Seligman, former president of the American Psychological Association, described Csikszentmihalyi as the world's leading researcher on positive psychology.[10] Csikszentmihalyi once said: 'Repression is not the way to virtue. When people restrain themselves out of fear, their lives are by necessity diminished. Only through freely chosen discipline can life be enjoyed and still kept within the bounds of reason.'[11] His works are influential and are widely cited.[12]

Flow[edit]

Mental state in terms of challenge level and skill level, according to Csikszentmihalyi's flow model.[13] (Click on a fragment of the image to go to the appropriate article)
Torrent Flow The Psychology Of Optimal Experience Theory

In his seminal work, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Csíkszentmihályi outlines his theory that people are happiest when they are in a state of flow—a state of concentration or complete absorption with the activity at hand and the situation. It is a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter.[14][page needed] The idea of flow is identical to the feeling of being in the zone or in the groove. The flow state is an optimal state of intrinsic motivation, where the person is fully immersed in what they are doing. This is a feeling everyone has at times, characterized by a feeling of great absorption, engagement, fulfillment, and skill—and during which temporal concerns (time, food, ego-self, etc.) are typically ignored.[15]

In an interview with Wired magazine, Csíkszentmihályi described flow as 'being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost.'[16]

Csikszentmihályi characterized nine component states of achieving flow including 'challenge-skill balance, merging of action and awareness, clarity of goals, immediate and unambiguous feedback, concentration on the task at hand, paradox of control, transformation of time, loss of self-consciousness, and autotelic experience'.[17] To achieve a flow state, a balance must be struck between the challenge of the task and the skill of the performer. If the task is too easy or too difficult, flow cannot occur. Both skill level and challenge level must be matched and high; if skill and challenge are low and matched, then apathy results.[13][page needed]

One state that Csikszentmihalyi researched was that of the autotelic personality.[17] The autotelic personality is one in which a person performs acts because they are intrinsically rewarding, rather than to achieve external goals.[18] Csikszentmihalyi describes the autotelic personality as a trait possessed by individuals who can learn to enjoy situations that most other people would find miserable.[14][page needed] Research has shown that aspects associated with the autotelic personality include curiosity, persistence, and humility.[19]

Motivation[edit]

A majority of Csikszentmihalyi's most recent work surrounds the idea of motivation and the factors that contribute to motivation, challenge, and overall success in an individual. One personality characteristic that Csikszentmihalyi researched in detail was that of intrinsic motivation. Csikszentmihalyi and his colleagues found that intrinsically motivated people were more likely to be goal-directed and enjoy challenges that would lead to an increase in overall happiness.[20]

Csikszentmihalyi identified intrinsic motivation as a powerful trait to possess to optimize and enhance positive experience, feelings, and overall well-being as a result of challenging experiences. The results indicated a new personality construct, a term Csikszentmihalyi called work orientation, which is characterized by 'achievement, endurance, cognitive structure, order, play, and low impulsivity'. A high level of work orientation in students is said to be a better predictor of grades and fulfillment of long-term goals than any school or household environmental influence.[21]

Personal life[edit]

Csikszentmihalyi is the father of artist and professor Christopher Csikszentmihályi, and University of California, Berkeley professor of philosophical and religious traditions of China and East Asia, Mark Csikszentmihalyi.[22]

Torrent Flow The Psychology Of Optimal Experience Theory

In 2009, Csikszentmihalyi was awarded the Clifton Strengths Prize[23] and received the Széchenyi Prize at a ceremony in Budapest in 2011.[24] He was awarded the Grand Cross Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary in 2014.[7] He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of both the National Academy of Education and the National Academy of Leisure Sciences.[6]

Publications[edit]

  • Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly (1975). Beyond Boredom and Anxiety: Experiencing Flow in Work and Play, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. ISBN0-87589-261-2
  • Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly (1978) 'Intrinsic Rewards and Emergent Motivation' in The Hidden Costs of Reward: New Perspectives on the Psychology of Human Motivation eds Lepper, Mark R; Greene, David, Erlbaum: Hillsdale: N.Y. 205–216
  • Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly and Halton, Eugene (1981). The Meaning of Things: Domestic Symbols and the Self , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN0-521-28774-X
  • Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly and Larson, Reed (1984). Being Adolescent: Conflict and Growth in the Teenage Years. New York: Basic Books, Inc.ISBN0-465-00646-9
  • Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly and Csikszentmihalyi, Isabella Selega, eds. (1988). Optimal Experience: Psychological studies of flow in consciousness, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN0-521-34288-0
  • Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: Harper and Row. ISBN0-06-092043-2
  • Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly (1994). The Evolving Self, New York: Harper Perennial. ISBN0-06-092192-7
  • Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly (1996). Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention. New York: Harper Perennial. ISBN0-06-092820-4
  • Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly (1998). Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement With Everyday Life. Basic Books. ISBN0-465-02411-4 (a popular exposition emphasizing technique)
  • Gardner, Howard, Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly, and Damon, William (2001). Good Work: When Excellence and Ethics Meet. New York, Basic Books.
  • Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly (2003). Good Business: Leadership, Flow, and the Making of Meaning. Basic Books, Inc. ISBN0-465-02608-7
  • Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly (2014). The Systems Model of Creativity: The Collected Works of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Dordrecht: Springer, 2014. ISBN978-94-017-9084-0
  • Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly (2014). Flow and the Foundations of Positive Psychology: The Collected Works of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Dordrecht: Springer, 2014. ISBN978-94-017-9087-1
  • Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly (2014). Applications of Flow in Human Development and Education: The Collected Works of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Dordrecht: Springer, 2014. ISBN978-94-017-9093-2

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^O'Keefe, Paul A. (4 September 2014). 'Liking Work Really Matters'. The New York Times. Retrieved 30 October 2015.
  2. ^Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly (1990). Flow: the psychology of optimal experience (1st ed.). New York: Harper & Row. ISBN9780060162535.
  3. ^'Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi'. Claremont Graduate University. Retrieved 2 March 2017.
  4. ^ abcCooper, Andrew (1 September 1998). 'The Man Who Found the Flow'. Lion's Roar. Retrieved 6 May 2018.
  5. ^Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly (8 August 2014). Applications of Flow in Human Development and Education: The Collected Works of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. ISBN9789401790949.
  6. ^ abcdefghiKawamura, Kristine Marin (2014). 'Kristine Marin Kawamura, PhD interviews Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, PhD'. Cross Cultural Management. Emerald Group Publishing Limited. 21 (4). doi:10.1108/CCM-08-2014-0094.
  7. ^ abPontifex, Trevor (6 February 2015). 'Q&A: CGU Professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Receives Hungarian National Award'. The Student Life. Claremont, California: Claremont Colleges. Retrieved 6 May 2018.
  8. ^'Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi'. Claremont, Calif.: Claremont Graduate University, Division of Behavorial and Organizational Sciences. Retrieved 3 March 2014. B.A., University of Chicago, 1960
  9. ^https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=ycPRZqAAAAAJ
  10. ^Thinker of the Year Award
  11. ^'Virtue Quotes & Quotations'. focusdep.com. Archived from the original on 11 November 2013. Retrieved 19 January 2014.Cite uses deprecated parameter deadurl= (help)
  12. ^Nigel King & Neil Anderson (2002). Managing Innovation and Change. Cengage Learning EMEA. p. 82. (ISBN1861527837)
  13. ^ abCsikszentmihalyi, M., Finding Flow, 1997, p. 31.
  14. ^ abCsikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: Harper and Row. ISBN0-06-092043-2
  15. ^Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Harper Perennial Modern Classics. p. 27.
  16. ^Geirland, John (1996). 'Go With The Flow'. Wired magazine, September, Issue 4.09.
  17. ^ abFullagar, Clive J.; Kelloway, E. Kevin (2009). 'Flow at work: an experience sampling approach'. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology. 82 (3): 595–615. doi:10.1348/096317908x357903.
  18. ^Car, A. Positive psychology. The Science of happiness and human strengths. Hove, 2004.
  19. ^Csikszentmihalyi, M. & Nakamura, J. (2011). Positive psychology: Where did it come from, where is it going? In K. M. Sheldon, T. B. Kashdan, & M. F. Steger (Eds.), Designing positive psychology (pp. 2–9). New York: Oxford University Press.
  20. ^Abuhamdeh, Sami; Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly (2012). 'The importance of challenge for the enjoyment of intrinsically motivated, goal-directed activities'. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 38 (3): 317–30. doi:10.1177/0146167211427147. PMID22067510.
  21. ^Wong, Maria; Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1991). 'Motivation and academic achievement: The effects of personality traits and the quality of experience'. Journal of Personality. 59 (3): 539–574. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6494.1991.tb00259.x.
  22. ^'Mark Csikszentmihalyi'. ieas.berkeley.edu. Retrieved 6 May 2018.
  23. ^Nakamura, Jeanne. '2009 Clifton Strength Prize Laureate'. Clifton Strengths School. Archived from the original on 2 April 2012. Retrieved 15 June 2012.Cite uses deprecated parameter deadurl= (help)
  24. ^'President of Hungary honors SBOS Prof. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi with national science prize'. Claremont Graduate University. 3 June 2011. Retrieved 15 June 2012.

External links[edit]

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
  • Faculty page at Claremont Graduate University
  • Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi at TED
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Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experienceby
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Flow Quotes Showing 1-30 of 464
“Control of consciousness determines the quality of life.”
―
“To overcome the anxieties and depressions of contemporary life, individuals must become independent of the social environment to the degree that they no longer respond exclusively in terms of its rewards and punishments. To achieve such autonomy, a person has to learn to provide rewards to herself. She has to develop the ability to find enjoyment and purpose regardless of external circumstances.”
―

Flow The Psychology Of Optimal Experience …

“Most enjoyable activities are not natural; they demand an effort that initially one is reluctant to make. But once the interaction starts to provide feedback to the person's skills, it usually begins to be intrinsically rewarding.”
―
“Contrary to what we usually believe, moments like these, the best moments in our lives, are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times—although such experiences can also be enjoyable, if we have worked hard to attain them. The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile. Optimal experience is thus something that we
make happen. For a child, it could be placing with trembling fingers the last blockon a tower she has built, higher than any she has built so far; for a swimmer, it could be trying to beat his own record; for a violinist, mastering an intricate musical passage. For each person there are thousands of opportunities, challenges to expand ourselves.”
―
“...It is when we act freely, for the sake of the action itself rather than for ulterior motives, that we learn to become more than what we were.”
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“Of all the virtues we can learn no trait is more useful, more essential for survival, and more likely to improve the quality of life than the ability to transform adversity into an enjoyable challenge.”
―
“Few things are sadder than encountering a person who knows exactly what he should do, yet cannot muster enough energy to do it. 'He who desires but acts not,' wrote Blake with his accustomed vigor, 'Breeds pestilence.”
―
“The psychic entropy peculiar to the human condition involves seeing more to do than one can actually accomplish and feeling able to accomplish more than what conditions allow.”
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“On the job people feel skillful and challenged, and therefore feel more happy, strong, creative, and satisfied. In their free time people feel that there is generally not much to do and their skills are not being used, and therefore they tend to feel more sad, weak, dull, and dissatisfied. Yet they would like to work less and spend more time in leisure.
What does this contradictory pattern mean? There are several possible explanations, but one conclusion seems inevitable: when it comes to work, people do not heed the evidence of their senses. They disregard the quality of immediate experience, and base their motivation instead on the strongly rooted cultural stereotype of what work is supposed to be like. They think of it as an imposition, a constraint, an infringement of their freedom, and therefore something to be avoided as much as possible.”
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“...success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue...as the unintended side-effect of one's personal dedication to a course greater than oneself.”
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“The mystique of rock climbing is climbing; you get to the top of a rock glad it’s over but really wish it would go on forever. The justification of climbing is climbing, like the justification of poetry is writing; you don’t conquer anything except things in yourself…. The act of writing justifies poetry. Climbing is the same: recognizing that you are a flow. The purpose of the flow is to keep on flowing, not looking for a peak or utopia but staying in the flow. It is not a moving up but a continuous flowing; you move up to keep the flow going. There is no possible reason for climbing except the climbing itself; it is a self-communication.”
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“It is when we act freely, for the sake of the action itself rather than for ulterior motives, that we learn to become more than what we were. When we choose a goal and invest ourselves in it to the limits of concentration, whatever we do will be enjoyable. And once we have tasted this joy, we will redouble our efforts to taste it again. This is the way the self grows.”
―

Theory Of Flow

“Few things are sadder than encountering a person who knows exactly what he should do, yet cannot muster enough energy to do it.”
―
“People who learn to control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us can come to being happy.”
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“It is not the skills we actually have that determine how we feel but the ones we think we have.”
―
“Attention is like energy in that without it no work can be done, and in doing work is dissipated. We create ourselves by how we use this energy. Memories, thoughts and feelings are all shaped by how use it. And it is an energy under control, to do with as we please; hence attention is our most important tool in the task of improving the quality of experience.”
―
“it's a wise parent who allows her children to give up the things of childhood in their own time.”
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“Competition is enjoyable only when it is a means to perfect one’s skills; when it becomes an end in itself, it ceases to be fun.”
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“writing gives the mind a disciplined means of expression.”
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“The universe is not hostile, nor yet is it friendly,” in the words of J. H. Holmes. “It is simply indifferent.”
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“Most of us become so rigidly fixed in the ruts carved out by genetic programming and social conditioning that we ignore the options of choosing any other course of action. Living exclusively by genetic and social instructions is fine as long as everything goes well. But the moment bioloical or social goals are frustrated- which in the long run is inevitable - a person must formulate new goals, and create a new flow activity for himself, or else he will always waste his energies in inner turmoil.”
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“The rules themselves are clear enough, and within everyone’s reach. But many forces, both within ourselves and in the environment, stand in the way. It is a little like trying to lose weight: everyone knows what it takes, everyone wants to do it, yet it is next to impossible for so many.”
―
“The roots of the word “compete” are the Latin con petire, which meant “to seek together.”
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“Control over consciousness is not simply a cognitive skill. At least as much as intelligence, it requires the commitment of emotions and will. It is not enough to know how to do it; one must do it, consistently, in the same way as athletes or musicians who must keep practicing what they know in theory.”
―
Torrent Flow The Psychology Of Optimal Experience Theory
“How we feel about ourselves, the joy we get from living, ultimately depend directly on how to the mind filters and interprets everyday experiences. Whether we are happy depends on inner harmony, not on the controls we are able to exert over the great forces of the universe. Certainly we should keepo on learning how to master the external environment, because our physical survival may depend on it. But such mastery is not going to add one jot to how good we as individuals feel, or reduce the chaos of the world as we experience it. To do that we must learn to achive mastery over conciousness itself.”
―
“A person who has achieved control over psychic energy and has invested it in consciously chosen goals cannot help but grow into a more complex being. By stretching skills, by reaching toward higher challenges, such a person becomes an increasingly extraordinary individual.”
―
“When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully,”
―
“It’s exhilarating to come closer and closer to self-discipline.”
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“..Such practices and beliefs, which interfere with happiness, are neither inevitable nor necessary; they evolved by chance, as a result of random responses to accidental conditions. But once they become part of the norms and habits of a culture, people assume that this is how things must be; they come to believe they have no other options.”
―
“It might be true that it is “quality time” that counts, but after a certain point quantity has a bearing on quality.”
―

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