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16 - The systematic assessment of flow in daily experience
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- By Fausto Massimini, University of Milan Medical School, Italy, Massimo Carli, University of Milan Medical School, Italy
- Edited by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, University of Chicago, Isabella Selega Csikszentmihalyi
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- Book:
- Optimal Experience
- Published online:
- 05 June 2012
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- 26 August 1988, pp 266-287
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Summary
In considering possible future empirical research on flow, a central desideratum was expressed in the last pages of Beyond Boredom and Anxiety: “The flow model could be extended to work situations and other ‘non leisure’ settings…it is important to find out piecemeal and experimentally what combination of challenges and skills can be accommodated in a schoolroom, a neighborhood, or at home, so that … [we] can maximize flow involvement in as many people as possible” (Csikszentmihalyi 1975b, p. 203). The present chapter describes such a project.
The transition from theory to empirical validation is never easy, especially when the phenomenon is a complex one. When it belongs to the class of “subjective experiences,” the methodological challenge becomes even more baffling. In this context, the problem consists of finding a way to describe variations in the quality of subjective experience as a function of variations in the conditions of flow – that is, as a function of the relationship between the levels of perceived challenges and perceived skills.
Flow is a relatively rare experience, difficult to encounter every day, at least in our culture and for the majority of people. It was first described in groups of people who, because of their specialized activities and because of their strong involvement, were able to come in contact with this experience in its highest forms – chess masters, rock climbers, surgeons, and so on (Csikszentmihalyi 1975b).
17 - The quality of experience in the flow channels: comparison of Italian and U.S. students
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- By Massimo Carli, University of Milan Medical School, Italy, Antonella Deele Fave, University of Milan Medical School, Italy, Fausto Massimini, University of Milan Medical School, Italy
- Edited by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, University of Chicago, Isabella Selega Csikszentmihalyi
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- Book:
- Optimal Experience
- Published online:
- 05 June 2012
- Print publication:
- 26 August 1988, pp 288-306
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Summary
This chapter compares responses to the Experience Sampling Method from a sample of American students in the Chicago area studied by Csikszentmihalyi and Larson (1984) and a sample of Italian students from a classical lyceum in Milan (Carli 1986; Gallina 1986; Toscano 1986; Massimini & Carli, Chapter 16). The purpose of the comparison is to ascertain whether and to what extent respondents in these two cultures report similar experiences across their daily life in terms of the flow theory as operationalized by the challenge/skill ratio. Given the importance of the high school in the lives of these two groups of adolescents, the chapter also focuses on studying.
In the case of cross-cultural comparisons, it is important to keep the variables defining the two groups identical as far as possible, except for the one variable that is to be compared, namely, the national or cultural difference. In the present case, the matching is close but not perfect. First of all, the relative standing of the two high schools in their respective communities is similar but not absolutely comparable. The American high school from which the sample of 75 U.S. adolescents was drawn was a diversified community high school with about 4,000 students of quite different academic interests and abilities. The Italian lyceum from which the 47 Italian adolescents were drawn is a much more select and academically oriented institution.
4 - Flow and biocultural evolution
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- By Fausto Massimini, University of Milan Medical School, Italy, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, University of Chicago, Antonella Delle Fave, University of Milan Medical School, Italy
- Edited by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, University of Chicago, Isabella Selega Csikszentmihalyi
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- Book:
- Optimal Experience
- Published online:
- 05 June 2012
- Print publication:
- 26 August 1988, pp 60-82
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Summary
This chapter is about the role of the flow experience in the construction and complexification of the self, and, in a broader sense, its role in biological and cultural evolution. Some of the theoretical assumptions underlying this relationship have already been developed elsewhere (e.g., Massimini & Calegari 1979; Massimini 1982; Csikszentmihalyi & Massimini 1985; Csikszentmihalyi 1987b). The main contention is that people tend to replicate optimal experiences more often relative to other experiences in order to maintain an ordered state of consciousness.
The characteristics that make the flow experience a negentropic state of consciousness – high concentration and involvement, clarity of goals and feedback, and intrinsic motivation, all made possible by a balance between perceived challenges and personal skills – have already been described theoretically and confirmed empirically (Csikszentmihalyi 1975b, 1982a; Csikszentmihalyi & Graef 1979). One of the purposes of this chapter is to show the underlying sameness in the phenomenology of this experience by reporting examples from interviews with individuals in very different cultures.
In addition, by considering which activities produce flow and the number of people in each sample who find flow in various activities, it is possible to begin estimating how this experience might influence biological and cultural evolution. For example, when a person learns to experience flow in the context of a religious vocation, as in one of the samples considered in the following pages, the replication of cultural instructions having to do with prayer, meditation, and ritual ceremonies may take precedence even over the replication of that person's biological instructions.
12 - Modernization and the changing contexts of flow in work and leisure
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- By Antonella Delle Fave, University of Milan Medical School, Italy, Fausto Massimini, University of Milan Medical School, Italy
- Edited by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, University of Chicago, Isabella Selega Csikszentmihalyi
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- Book:
- Optimal Experience
- Published online:
- 05 June 2012
- Print publication:
- 26 August 1988, pp 193-213
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Summary
Cultures differ enormously in terms of the range of opportunities they make available to the people who live in them, and in terms of the skills that the average inhabitant feels he or she possesses. The same culture may vary dramatically along these dimensions at two different points in time. Therefore the quality of subjective experience of a typical member of society will also vary. These days, when anthropologists are more than ever hesitant to breach the neutrality of cultural relativism, and when imposing Western standards of interpretation and description on foreign cultures has become a heresy to be avoided at all costs, it might be that focusing on the self-reported experiences of native respondents will provide a viable comparative method.
Accordingly, this chapter reports on extensive interviews with four European groups that, although living in close geographical proximity, are part of very different ecologies and cultural environments. They differ especially in the degree to which they still follow a traditional agricultural lifestyle, as opposed to being integrated with the technological life of the cities. The purpose is to compare how optimal experience is described in such contexts, to see what different activities it is experienced in, and to infer the effects that modernization is having on the quality of subjective experience.
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