Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention

by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi

attention. Some traits are more likely than others to result in personal creativity. Is it possible to reshape personality to make it more creative? It is difficult for adults to change personalities. Some of the habits that form personality are based on temperament, or the particular genetic inheritance that makes one person very shy, or aggressive, or distractible. Temperament then interacts with social environment—parents, family, friends, teachers—and some habits are strengthened, others weakened or repressed. By the time we are out of our teens, many of these habits are strongly set, and it is difficult to invest attention—to think, feel, or act—in any other way than what our traits allow. It is difficult, but it is not impossible. Strangely, in our culture we spend billions of dollars trying to improve our looks, but we take a fatalistic attitude toward our personal traits—as if it was beyond our abilities to change them. If all the energy expended on dieting, cosmetics, and dressing