Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi

It would go against the central message of this book to claim that the flow experience is “good for you” in the sense that it helps people achieve scientific or any other kind of success. It needs to be stressed again and again that what counts is the quality of experience flow provides, and that this is more important for achieving happiness than riches or fame. At the same time, it would be disingenuous to ignore the fact that successful people tend to enjoy what they do to an unusual extent. This may indicate that people who enjoy what they are doing will do a good job of it (although, as we know, correlation does not imply causation). A long time ago, Maurice Schlick (1934) pointed out how important enjoyment was in sustaining scientific creativity. In an interesting recent study, B. Eugene Griessman interviewed a potpourri of high achievers ranging from Francis H. C. Crick, the codiscoverer of the double helix, to Hank Aaron, Julie Andrews, and Ted Turner. Fifteen of these celebrities completed a questionnaire in which they rated the importance of thirty-three personal characteristics, such as creativity, competence, and breadth of knowledge, in terms of helping them achieve success. The item most strongly endorsed (for an average of 9.86 on a 10-point scale) was enjoyment of work (Griessman 1987, pp. 294–95). Another indication of how flow may be linked to success is suggested by the work of Larson (1985, 1988). In a study of high school juniors writing a month-long ...