Flow (psychology)

Flow is the mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity. Proposed by positive psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, the concept has been widely referenced across a variety of fields.

Colloquial terms for this or similar mental states include: to be on the ball, in the zone, or in the groove.

Components of flow

Young boy, painting a model

Csíkszentmihályi identifies the following nine factors as accompanying an experience of flow:

1. Clear goals (expectations and rules are discernible and goals are attainable and align appropriately with one's skill set and abilities).

2. Concentrating and focusing, a high degree of concentration on a limited field of attention (a person engaged in the activity will have the opportunity to focus and to delve deeply into it).

3. A loss of the feeling of self-consciousness, the merging of action and awareness.

4. Distorted sense of time, one's subjective experience of time is altered.

5. Direct and immediate feedback (successes and failures in the course of the activity are apparent, so that behavior can be adjusted as needed).

6. Balance between ability level and challenge (the activity is neither too easy nor too difficult).

7. A sense of personal control over the situation or activity.

8. The activity is intrinsically rewarding, so there is an effortlessness of action.

9. People become absorbed in their activity, and focus of awareness is narrowed down to the activity itself, action awareness merging.

Not all are needed for flow to be experienced.

Etymology

Flow is so named because during Csíkszentmihályi's 1975 interviews several people described their 'flow' experiences using the metaphor of a water current carrying them along. The psychological concept of flow as becoming absorbed in an activity is thus unrelated to the older phrase "go with the flow".

Group flow

Csíkszentmihályi suggests several ways in which a group could work together so that each individual member could achieve flow. The characteristics of such a group include:

• Creative spatial arrangements: Chairs, pin walls, charts, but no tables; thus work primarily standing and moving.
• Playground design: Charts for information inputs, flow graphs, project summary, craziness (here also craziness has a place), safe place (here all may say what is otherwise only thought), result wall, open topics
• Parallel, organized working
• Target group focus
• Advancement of existing one (prototyping)
• Increase in efficiency through visualization
• Existence of differences among participants represents an opportunity, rather than an obstacle.

Applications

Applications suggested by Csíkszentmihályi versus other practitioners

Only Csíkszentmihályi seems to have published suggestions for extrinsic applications of the Flow concept, such as design methods for playgrounds to elicit the Flow experience. Other practitioners of Csíkszentmihályi's Flow concept focus on intrinsic applications, such as spirituality, performance improvement or self-help. Reinterpretations of Csíkszentmihályi's Flow process exist to improve performance in areas as diverse as business, piano improvisation, sport psychology, and standup comedy.

Education

In education, there is the concept of overlearning which seems to be an important factor in this technique, in that Csíkszentmihályi states that overlearning enables the mind to concentrate on visualizing the desired performance as a singular, integrated action instead of a set of actions.

Music

Musicians, especially improvisational soloists can experience a similar state of mind while playing their instrument.

Sports

The concept of "being in the zone" during an athletic performance fits within Csíkszentmihályi's description of the Flow experience, and theories and applications of "being in the zone" and its relationship with athletic competitive advantage are topics studied in the field of sport psychology.

Timothy Gallwey's influential works on the inner game of sports such as golf and tennis described the mental coaching and attitudes which were required to get into the zone and so fully internalise mastery of the sport.

Roy Palmer suggests that "being in the zone" may also influence movement patterns as better integration of the conscious and subconscious reflex functions improves coordination. Many athletes describe the effortless nature of their performance whilst achieving personal bests - see references.

The Formula 1 driver Ayrton Senna, who during qualifying for the 1988 Monaco Grand Prix explained: "I was already on pole, [...] and I just kept going. Suddenly I was nearly two seconds faster than anybody else, including my team mate with the same car. And suddenly I realised that I was no longer driving the car consciously. I was driving it by a kind of instinct, only I was in a different dimension. It was like I was in a tunnel."

When challenges and skills are simultaneously above average, a broadly positive experience emerges. Also vital to the flow state is a sense of control, which nevertheless seems simultaneously effortless and masterful. Control and concentration manifest with a transcendence of normal awareness; one aspect of this transcendence is the loss of self-consciousness.

Religion and spirituality

Csíkszentmihályi may have been the first to describe this concept in Western psychology, but as he himself readily acknowledges he was most certainly not the first to quantify the concept of Flow or develop applications based on the concept.

For millennia, practitioners of Eastern religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism have honed the discipline of overcoming the duality of self and object as a central feature of spiritual development. Eastern spiritual practitioners have developed a very thorough and holistic set of theories around overcoming duality of self and object, tested and refined through spiritual practice instead of the systematic rigor and controls of modern science.

The phrase "being at one with things" is a metaphor of Csíkszentmihályi's Flow concept. Practitioners of the varied schools of Zen Buddhism apply concepts similar to Flow to aid their mastery of art forms, including, in the case of Japanese Zen Buddhism, Aikido, Kendo and Ikebana.

Gaming

Game designers, particularly video and computer games, benefit from integration of Flow principles into gameplay design.

Professions and work

Developers of computer software reference getting into a flow state, sometimes referred to as the "Zone" or "Hackmode" , when developing in an undistracted state. Stock market operators often use the term "in the pipe" to describe the psychological state of flow when trading during high volume days and market corrections.

See also

• Creativity
• Hyperfocus
• Imagination
• Improvisation
• Mindfullness
• Motivation
• Mushin
• Play
• Prayer
• Spirituality
• Taoism
• Trance
• Wu wei

References

Notations

• Csíkszentmihályi, Mihály (1996). Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention. New York: Harper Perennial. ISBN 0-06-092820-4
• Csíkszentmihályi, Mihály (1998). Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement With Everyday Life. Basic Books. ISBN 0-465-02411-4 (a popular exposition emphasizing technique)
• Csíkszentmihályi, Mihály (2003). Good Business: Leadership, Flow, and the Making of Meaning. New York: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-200409-X
• Egbert, Joy (2003), "A Study of Flow Theory in the Foreign Language Classroom", The Modern Language Journal, 87 (4): 499–518{{citation}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link).
• Jackson, Susan A. & Csíkszentmihályi, Mihály (1999). Flow in Sports: The Keys to Optimal Experiences and Performances. Champaign, Illinois: Human Kinetics Publishers. ISBN 0-88011-876-8
• Mainemelis, Charalampos (2001), "When the Muse Takes It All: A Model for the Experience of Timelessness in Organizations", The Academy of Management Review, 26 (4): 548–565{{citation}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link).
• Shainberg, Lawrence (1989-04-09), "FINDING 'THE ZONE'", New York Times Magazine {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link)

External links

• Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Creativity, fulfillment and flow YouTube video of presentation at the TED conference.
• flOw A flash based implementation of flow theory and immersion in a game format.
• Archetype Writing The Right-Brain/Left-Brain Myth and Flow looks at the neurology behind flow.
• "In the zone": enjoyment, creativity, and the nine elements of "flow"
• Finding Flow in Writing by Tracy Steen, Ph.D.
• FlowTheory.com An MSc dissertation exploring the importance of website usability from a business perspective; contains a section on flow.