More about Csikszentmihalyi
As time permits, I will be turning
this extended outline into the kind of narrative-format lecture notes you have
come to expect from me. For now, be
patient, as I wanted to get at least a linear outline available to you for
study. This outline does involve
some temporarily unattributed quotes (or slightly edited/abridged quotes) from
the sources that are formally listed (linked) on this Web site.
When I am done constructing the final notes, the proper formal
attributions will be put in place (so please don’t mistakenly accuse me of
plagiarism – remembering that when you engage in plagiarism, I am
justified in giving you a failing grade for the course!).
These are notes in progress only, not a completed work product.
They do, however, allow me to experience the joy of Microsoft’s
automatic outliner, which works at least as well as their spell checker (that is
to say, not). Why doesn't it know the difference between capital and small
letters? Why can't it set the indented margins in a rational
fashion? Why does my computer hate me so much?
I. Background – how did Csikszentmihalyi develop his interest in “flow”?
a. “Csikszentmihalyi’s research was influenced by his experiences as a child growing up in wartime Hungary. During the war, when Hungarian society was overturned, most of the adults Csikszentmihalyi had respected ‘disintegrated’ [note R.C. Sproul, damah] with the loss of social status and financial support. He became intrigued by the question of why some – a small but important minority – did not.” (Note the similarity to Frankl as discussed earlier in the semester.)
b.
In his early professional work, “Csikszentmihalyi explored the life of
more than 90 of the world’s most creative people, such as author Madeleine
l’Engle and scientist Jonas Salk, to find out how creativity has been a force
in their lives.” He began
to postulate connections between flow and the ability to transcend external
conditions (again note the similarity to Frankl’s ideas).
c.
Csiksentmihalyi noted that certain kinds of creative activities are
motivating in themselves, but for reasons different from those others had
postulated. “When a painting was
beginning to get interesting, they could not tear themselves away from it;
they forgot hunger, social obligations, time, and fatigue so that they
could keep moving it along. But
this fascination lasted only as long as a picture remained unfinished;
once it stopped changing and growing, the artist usually leaned it
against a wall and turned his or her attention to the next blank canvas. It seemed clear that what was so enthralling about painting
was not the anticipation of a beautiful picture, but the process of painting
itself…” He began to note that
the rewards had nothing to do with external approval and that this process was
not restricted to highly creative types, but was instead (in practice or at
least as a potential) a part and parcel of many or most human lives to a greater
or lesser extent.
II. What is flow?
a. Flow: “a state of deep focus that occurs when people engage in challenging tasks that demand intense concentration and commitment.” Example: “Some people become so deeply focused when writing, they experience an almost euphoric state of joy and pleasure in the process. They lose track of time, are highly alert, and feel they are writing to the best of their ability.” Other examples could be drawn from the sports world, where players often say they are “in the zone”, etc.
b.
“A typical day is full of anxiety and boredom.
Flow experiences provide the flashes of intense living against this dull
background.” (hence a person’s life satisfaction may be strongly correlated
with her/his ability to spontaneously generate flow, which is part of becoming
what Csikszentmihalyi calls being an “autotelic” person)
c.
Flow is intrinsically motivating as noted below.
People will sacrifice material rewards, and physical and social needs, to
get it. Hence it can be viewed as
having addictive properties (probably taps into the same brain reward centers as
do the negative addictions, but in a positive way)
III. External preconditions of flow
a. Optimal, commensurate match between skills and challenges
i. The four quadrants (apathy, anxiety, boredom, and flow) – if my scanner liked me, I could cut/paste a pretty little picture here, but because when I was a child, Power Point was just a thumbtack, I don’t know how and don’t intend to learn – you’ll just have to attend lecture for this part
ii.
“Contrary to expectations, flow usually happens not during moments of
leisure and entertainment, but rather when we are actively involved in a
difficult enterprise, on a task that stretches our mental and physical
abilities.”
iii.
“Flow is a paradoxical kind of condition where you feel you are on a
knife edge between anxiety on the one hand and boredom on the other.
You’re just operating on this fine line where you can barely do what
needs to be done.”
iv.
This is one of the ways in which flow is different from mere pleasure,
which lacks a sense of achievement or active contribution to the result.
In fact low-demand leisure activities like mindless TV viewing may be
“anti-flowful” yet we often default to them because they require less
initial input (“activation energy” or “priming the pump”) than do
flowful activities
b. Clear goals (versus random or purely unstructured activity) – there is an overriding purpose, which means in part that success and failure at the task are meaningful concepts. There are ways to “go right” and ways to “go wrong”. This is part of what is meant by the high challenge. The challenge comes from having to do something right or well even though it is difficult (not automatic).
c.
Immediate or real-time feedback – you can tell from moment to moment
how you are doing, so that you can make immediate “course corrections” –
part of the challenge comes from the need to constantly monitor your performance
or scan the environment so that you can do so, so you can respond in real-time
to the cues that require corrective actions on your part (note how this provides
a significant critique of contemporary educational practices, where you only get
a grade at the end of a long process, etc.)
d.
Hence, some activities lend themselves to flow more than others.
Lack of the criteria above (immediate feedback, commensurate challenges
and skills, and clear goals), all of which are necessary precursors to flow,
makes flow difficult to achieve (though to some extent they can be
self-generated, see below, especially by “autotelic” persons)
IV. Psychological concomitants of flow
a.
Intense focus – The first symptom of flow is a narrowing of attention
on a clearly defined goal. We feel
involved, concentrated, absorbed. (note
links to states like hypnosis)
b.
Great inner clarity – other considerations are forgotten, time stands
still, sense of immediacy or “living in the moment” or “in the zone” –
“The depth of concentration required by the fine balance of challenges and
skills precludes worrying about temporarily irrelevant issues.
We forget ourselves and become lost in the activity.
If the rock climber were to worry about his job or his love life as he is
hanging by his fingertips over the void, he would soon fall.”
Yet paradoxically this does not generate anxiety, but ecstasy (see below)
c.
Sense of ecstasy, including
self-forgetfulness (this is the intrinsically motivating component) -- The word
“ecstatic” comes from the Latin for “to stand alongside” – as if I am
viewing myself doing something (“the story started to write itself, the
characters took over the page”). “The
well matched use of skills provides a sense of control over our actions, yet
because we are too busy to think of ourselves, it does not matter whether we are
in control or not, whether we are winning or losing.”
May be partially explained by the same concepts involved in opponent
process theory. Because of these
elements, people will sacrifice many other needs and wants to achieve and retain
a sense of flow (notice how this is a partial contradiction of reductive models
of motivation such as Freud’s) Opposite
of flow is entropy, in which we feel little control over our thoughts and
usually find unwanted negative thoughts or affective states intruding.
Note links between entropy and self-preoccupation.
“A major constraint on people enjoying what they are doing is always
being conscious of a fear of how they appear to others and what these others
might think. Flow includes rising
above these constraining concerns of the ego.”
d.
Sense of ego transcendence – “Often we feel a sense of transcendence,
as if the boundaries of the self had been expanded.
The sailor feels at one with the wind, the boat, and the sea;
the singer feels a sense of universal harmony.
In those moments the awareness of time disappears, and hours seem to
flash by without our noticing.” Note
links to meditative states and the like. Research
indicates that there is a neurological component (lowered activation in brain
regions associated with ego boundaries or a sense of distinct individual
selfhood).
e. Other elements – “Flow involves a positive attitude toward facing challenges, as well as not allowing oneself to be controlled by time, social conventions, or material desires.” Hence it suggests links to transcendence in Frankl’s sense – the person governed by flow is more inner-directed (autotelic) than outer-directed, hence more independent of circumstances. “Flow has positive influences on both cognitive efficiency and on creativity” as well as self-control, increased learning, and perhaps even mental health. It also is associated with a sense of paradoxical playfulness (the “ludic” state) even though the task in which a person is involved may in fact be deadly serious (piloting a plane, conducting surgery)
V. Implications, sociological and otherwise
a. “Csikszentmihalyi’s model is a critique of the popular lifestyle that our culture idolizes, the notion that you can have a good life by trying to amass as much as you possibly can. Research shows that active involvement in one’s work, family, and community are the ways in which people end up having a good life.” (note links to the PPM in general)
b.
Some people are more flowful than others.
Survey results: 15% said they had never experienced flow, 15-20% said they
experienced it frequently (many, even daily), the rest said they experienced it
sporadically or periodically. “Some
people are inclined to flow. They
set goals even when apparently doing nothing and are able to focus their
attention easily. These sorts of
people can experience flow even in difficult situations – prison camps and
harsh jobs being two examples Csikszentmihalyi studied.”
His term for people who do this easily or well is “autotelic” (from autos,
“self”, and telos, “end or goal”)
c.
“Flow tends to result in personal growth.
By engaging in flow, your skills develop, requiring greater challenges to
maintain the balance needed for flow.”
d.
“Not all flow is good. Wartime
in general is a demanding, challenging, flow-prone experience, which explains
the appeal of gangs in inner cities.”
e.
Cross-cultural evidences of flow
f.
Can flow be quantified? (does not appear to be a binary condition, though
there are threshold levels)
g.
Career implications
i.
Career satisfaction means, in part, finding a way to make a living that
enhances flow (by optimizing the match between skills and challenges, by
providing immediate feedback and clear goals, and so forth) – some jobs, and
some work environments, are more flowful than others, but this may also depend
on a person’s specific interests (valued goals) and skill sets
ii.
Csikszentmihalyi “discovered that some highly creative people find
satisfaction by inventing a career or job for themselves, almost like a
scientist who creates a new field of study” (links to entrepreneurship, job
creation, etc.)
iii.
Even a boring job can be made better by learning how to make it flowful
– knowing how to do so is a learnable skill
h.
Csikszentmihalyi attempts to use flow as the basis for developing an
elaborate metaphysical-ethical system, but this part is highly speculative and
has, justifiably in my view, drawn many critics (though it also has its
admirers) – this aspect can safely be divorced from the rest of his theory and
treated separately, which we won’t be doing in this class except to ask –
what links might there be between flow as an individual state and the well-being
of society? Can we (and should we?)
encourage the development of social structures that enhance flow, individually
and collectively? What would those
structures be? Would this make any
difference?
The ESM: Subjects were given a timer which went off at random intervals (distinctly annoying, no doubt) and were asked to record what they were doing when the timer went off, how they felt (e.g., how happy they were on a 0-100 subjective self-rating scale), what they were thinking at the time. (Example: right now I'm smashing this stupid timer to bits; it feels great, 100 on a scale of 100; and I'm thinking that only an idiot would choose to participate in a study like this one.) This enabled Csikszentmihalyi to answer questions like: are there times of day when people are, on average, happier than others? (Answer: yes, ESM ratings do tend to correlate strongly with the physiological circadian rhythm. People are least optimistic between 2 and 4 a.m. -- especially when wakened from a sound sleep by a stupid research timer -- and most optimistic in the late morning.)
The Law of Diminishing Returns: Csikszentmihalyi notes that most of the kinds of activities (most of them biologically based activities that tap into the hard-wired reward centers of the brain) that we think of as inherently pleasurable (e.g., eating, sleeping, sex) do, as measured by the ESM, enhance short-term happiness, but the marginal gains in happiness from increasing such activities decline very rapidly. For instance, the average American adult spends about 5% of a typical week eating, and reports measurably higher levels of happiness when eating as compared to times when s/he is not eating. However, doubling the amount of time spent eating does not again double the amount of reported happiness; instead one sees a response curve something like this:
The moral? The major problem with hedonistic approaches to increasing happiness is not that they are wrong (as such), but that they do not work in the long run. (Ask any recovering addict.) Marginal gains come early and can never be recaptured by "chasing" the behavior that originally worked. This is very much in line with the philosophy of the PPM (and of Frankl, etc.) that a different approach to long-term satisfaction is needed. (Now go home and read the book of Ecclesiastes. The Hebrew word usually translated "vanity" or "empty" is literally hevel, "breath". Breathing is good compared to the alternative, but you can never hold a breath: when it's gone, it's gone.)
Activation energy: Active behaviors (reading, exercising, artistic creativity, strategy games) invariably lead to more self-reported happiness on the ESM than passive ones (mindless TV viewing, hanging out at the mall, daydreaming). Yet most people spend much more of their leisure time in passive rather than active behaviors, even though they themselves know that these pursuits are less likely to make them happy. Why?
The answer stems from the concept of "activation energy". Active behaviors pay rich dividends in personal satisfaction -- once you are fully engaged in them; but it requires an expenditure of effort (mental, physical, or both) to get yourself going. Many people (especially if they are tired or energy-depleted) will say that they "just aren't up to" the more active pursuits; their energy reserves or emotional reserves are too low to be able to pay the necessary price to "prime the emotional pump" in expectation of the eventual returns. (Note that this helps explain why depressed people become far less likely to engage in active behaviors; they say they "lack interest" or "lack motivation".) This unfortunately leads to a Catch-22, in which the kinds of activities that would break the depressive cycle require too much emotional investment to begin.
Graphically this would look as follows:
In general, the deeper the "activation energy" trough (negative energy), the higher the eventual rewards (positive energy or increases in ESM ratings) -- not a surprise; the more you invest in something, the more likely you are to gain from your investment. However, all of us have limits in how much of an energy reserve we have; when tired, depressed, overworked, stressed, or the like, we may find that passive activities are all we can muster. (Note: in my view, Mannix reruns count as an active behavioral choice because of the high level of intellectual stimulation involved.)
Flow: As noted in the main lecture notes, two preconditions of flow are (a) a match between high skills and high challenges; (b) real-time feedback about success at structured, goal-oriented activities. A third condition, not mentioned in those notes, is (c) a perception that the activity being engaged in is freely chosen and engaged in for its own sake (intrinsic), rather than compulsory or engaged in for the sake of an artificial external reward (extrinsic). In fact, one way to spoil the fun of any activity is to start getting paid for it. This suggests that educators (who offer the "pay" of grades), employers (who offer literal pay), and others who incentivize desired activities by means of extrinsic rewards may actually be paradoxically undermining individuals' inherent interest in those activities. (So: if you love something enough to make it your career, how do you manage to avoid spoiling it for yourself? Think about what Csikszentmihalyi might say about that.)