Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi; born 29 September 1934) is a Hungarian psychology professor,
who emigrated to the United States at the age of 22.
Now 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.
Work 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 120 articles or book chapters.
Martin Seligman, former president of the American Psychological Association, described Csikszentmihalyi
as the world's leading researcher on positive psychology.
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."
His works are influential and are widely cited.
Personal background Csikszentmihalyi received his B.A. in 1960
and his PhD in 1965, both from the University of Chicago.
Csikszentmihalyi is the father of Art Center College of Design Professor Christopher Csikszentmihalyi
and University of California - Berkeley professor of philosophical and religious traditions
of China and East Asia, Mark Csikszentmihalyi.
In 2009, Csikszentmihalyi was awarded the Clifton Strengths Prize and received the Széchenyi
Prize at a ceremony in Budapest in 2011.
Flow
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.
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 he is 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 are typically ignored.
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."
Csikszentmihalyi characterized nine component states of achieving flow including “challenge-skill
balance, merging of action and awareness, immediate and unambiguous feedback, concentration
on the task at hand, paradox of control, transformation of time, loss of self-consciousness, and autotelic
experience.”
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.
One state that Csikszentmihalyi researched was that of the autotelic personality.
The autotelic personality is one in which a person performs acts because they are intrinsically
rewarding, rather than to achieve external goals.
Csikszentmihalyi describes the autotelic personality as a trait possessed by individuals who can
learn to enjoy situations that most other people would find miserable.
Research has shown that aspects associated with the autotelic personality include curiosity,
persistence, and humbleness.
Motivation A large 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 found that intrinsically motivated people were more likely to be goal-directed
and enjoy challenges that would lead to an increase in overall happiness.
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.
Publications Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly.
Beyond Boredom and Anxiety: Experiencing Flow in Work and Play, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
ISBN 0-87589-261-2 Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly 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: NY 205-216
Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly and Csikszentmihalyi, Isabella Selega, eds..
Optimal Experience: Psychological studies of flow in consciousness, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
ISBN 0-521-34288-0 Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly.
Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.
New York: Harper and Row.
ISBN 0-06-092043-2 Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly.
The Evolving Self, New York: Harper Perennial.
ISBN 0-06-092192-7 Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly.
Creativity : Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention.
New York: Harper Perennial.
ISBN 0-06-092820-4 Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly.
Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement With Everyday Life.
Basic Books.
ISBN 0-465-02411-4 Gardner, Howard, Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly,
and Damon, William.
Good Work: When Excellence and Ethics Meet.
New York, Basic Books.
Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly.
Good Business: Leadership, Flow, and the Making of Meaning.
Basic Books.
ISBN 0-465-02608-7 See also
Creativity Motivation
Attention Psychology
Cognitive Science John Neulinger
Experience Sampling Method References
External links Faculty page at Claremont Graduate University
Brain Channels Thinker of the Year - 2000 Interview with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, 2006
TED Talks: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on flow at TED in 2004
Video Interview on the Flow of Goodness