Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention

by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi

It took several years of jail for Malcolm X to realize the power of religion and of politics, and to discover that he had gifts for both. Few of us know in advance what domains we may have an affinity for. Prodigies are children who from an early age show a definite gift in some direction, but most of us are not prodigies and it takes us decades of trial and error to find out what we are best cut out for. Even in our sample, some individuals did not realize what their vocations were until they were middle-aged. And often the realization was forced on them by outside factors, such as a war or the necessity to do something that then turned out to be just right. It is important to try as many domains as possible. Start with things you already enjoy an...

domain is always difficult, and love at first sight is rare. A certain amount of persistence is necessary. On the other hand, it makes no sense to persevere in an activity that gives no joy, or the promise of it. Eventually you should be able to find one or more domains that fit your interests, things that you enjoy doing and that expand your life. Ideally we should be able to do so in as many domains as possible. But in practice the limits on psychic energy make it impossible to take on more than a few discrete activities seriously. There are two dangers as you become involved in a domain. The first is addiction; some domains are so seductive that you may invest so much attention into it that you have none left for your job and family. Some chess players become so taken by the game tha...

so diffuse, so eclectic, that what you feel in different domains ends up being the same superficial experience. Like the traveler who goes everywhere and is still the same boring, provincial soul he was before he left, many people seem to gain nothing from sampling the best that the culture has to o...

The competition among new memes is fierce; few survive by being noticed, selected, and added to the culture. Luck has a huge hand in deciding

whose c is capitalized. But if you don’t learn to be creative in your personal life, the chances of contributing to the culture drop even closer to zero. And what really matters, in the last account, is not whether your name has been attached to a recognized discovery, but whether you have lived a full and creative life.

Creative people are often considered odd. Studies of the traits widely ascribed to creative people include “impulsive,” “nonconformist,” “makes up the rules as he or she goes along,” “likes to be alone,” and “tends not to know own limitations.” The least typical traits of creative people include “is practical,” “is dependable,” “is responsible,” “is logical,” “is sincere” (MacKinnon 1963; Sternberg 1985; Westby and Dawson 1995).

we must recognize that our

behavior is largely determined by ancient genetic instructions designed for self-protection and self-replication, and by more recent cultural instructions we have learned uncritically from the cultural milieu.

The argument suggests that, contrary to general belief, what limits creativity is not the lack of good new memes (i.e., ideas, products, works of art), but the lack of interest

in them. The constraint is not in the supply but in the demand.

It is likely that such traits as sensitivity, openness to experience, self-sufficiency, lack of interest in social norms and social acceptance, and—for artists—a tendency toward manic depression might be useful in increasing the likelihood that the person will try to innovate in his or her domain

For example, the high IQ children were more conventional and extrinsically motivated, while the highly creative ones were more rebellious and intrinsically motivated. As one might expect, teachers preferred the first kind.

Androgyny. There is ample evidence that talented

and creative individuals show traits usually associated with the opposite sex, and express the traits of their own sex less strongly than the average person.

Happiness is such a private and idiosyncratic experience that it is almost impossible to communicate it, and the writer must resort to trite clichés to describe it. On the other hand, unhappiness is so pervasive and uniform that everyone can immediately recognize it, so the writer is freed up to use style and imagination to embroider on unhappy themes, confident that the reader will be able to empathize with the subject.

many accounts of creative individuals that emphasized the importance of problem finding—as opposed to problem solving—

That people prefer to describe what they enjoy doing most with the phrase “designing or discovering something new”

The phenomenological parallel is that

without psychic energy expended in learning to control consciousness, the mind tends to fall into random, low-energy states. While one must make an effort to focus attention to enter the flow state, as soon as one is in it, external distractions are much less likely to disrupt concentration, and even great expenditures of physical and mental energy are experienced as if they were effortless.

at least one out of four adolescents aspires to a career in entertainment

“Keeper of the meaning,” a task that confronts a person after midlife and that involves selecting and passing on to the next generation the wisdom one has learned

“…it is easy to see why fiction fascinates us. It offers us

the opportunity to employ limitlessly our faculties for perceiving the world and reconstructing the past…it is through fiction that we adults train our ability to structure our past and present experience” (Eco 1994, p. 131).

In their cross-cultural interviews, the team of investigators led by Fausto Massimini found that reading was one of the most often mentioned source...

Too much encouragement. L’Engle’s contention that too much parental encouragement can be an obstacle to the development of a child’s talent makes sense on two counts: In the first place, praise tends to heighten self-consciousness, which in turns interrupts the flow experience; thus it is important to reserve whatever praise one wants to give until the child’s episode of involvement with the talent area is over. Second, and more important, is the fact that parental encouragement often takes the form of heightening the child’s awareness of extrinsic rewards, thereby undermining the intrinsic rewards of the activity. For instance, if the parents keep stressing

“You have to keep practicing that piano or you will never play in Carnegie Hall,” the child learns that the reason for playing is to get future recognition and success, not the present enjoyment of music. Unfortunately, indiscriminate praise is often advised as a parental technique that will raise children’s self-esteem (e.g., McKay and Fanning 1988), as if a self-esteem based on spurious praise was worth having. See also Damon (1995, chapter 4) for a similar argument. But feedback—including praise—that is directed at concrete details of the performance can be very useful; see Dweck’s (1986) distinction between “learning” and “performance” goals, and Deci and Ryan’s (1985) distinction between “informational” and “controlling” feedback.

“I would say that the chief obstacle is—oneself.” The quote by Stern in which he describes vanity, pride—the rubbishy parts of oneself—as being the greatest obstacles in one’s life

According to the pragmatic philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce, an act of recognition is one in which the object is simply assimilated to previous conceptual schemas, and nothing new happens in the mind; whereas an act of perception is one in which the object stimulates new thoughts or feelings that result in the expansion of consciousness

(Peirce 1931). This distinction is echoed in the teachings of the Yaqui Indian sorcerer Don Juan, described by Carlos Castaneda, one of whose basic techniques involved breaking down the conventional conceptual categories of experience (Castaneda 1971).

Géza Róheim. Róheim was a psychoanalytically trained ethnographer who studied, among other native cultures, that of the Australian aborigine. He became convinced that the ideal condition of existence was that of inorganic matter, and that life forms, including human life, were transient forms of irritation or disease (Róheim 1945). In this sense, his views are diametrically opposed to those expressed by Wilson (1984). Such conflicting

ways of interpreting the same phenomena are a good example of the sort of differences based on conflicting metaphysical assumptions that Popper (1959) claimed could not be resolved scientifically.

combination of parental love and discipline seems to work best in nurturing the development of talent in children

William James’s (1890) formula for self-esteem: the ratio of achievements over expectations. If expectations are very high, as they usually are among Asian-Americans, one would expect their self-esteem to be low, even when their achievements are relatively high.

Try to be surprised. As we know, creative individuals tend to face experience with openness, bordering on what Goethe called “naïveté.” This suggestion is similar to the one Don Juan gave to his apprentices, a practice he called “stopping the world” (Castaneda 1971). It consists in registering sensory stimuli without labeling them according to culturally defined conventions; for instance, looking at a tree without thinking of it as a “tree,” or letting any previous knowledge about trees enter into consciousness. It turns out that this exercise is extremely difficult, if not impossible to carry out (compare Peirce’s concept of perception). The suggestion to be surprised by what one encounters

during the day is a less radical version of “stopping the world.”

When there is nothing specific to do, our thoughts soon return to the most predictable state. The conclusion that the natural state of the mind is chaos is based on my studies with the Experience Sampling Method, which show that when people are alone with nothing to

do, their thoughts tend to become disordered and their moods negative (e.g., Csikszentmihalyi 1992; Csikszentmihalyi and Larson 1984; Kubey and Csikszentmihalyi 1990). As the neuropsychologist George Miller said, “The mind survives by ingesting information” (Miller 1983, p. 111); when there is no information to keep it in an ordered state, the mind begins to lose control of attention, at least temporarily. As with most such generalizations, this rule does not apply to everyone: Individuals who have learned to control their minds even in the absence of external inputs of information—by learning a symbolic system and its operations, such as prayer, meditation, mathematics, poetry—can avoid the entropy of solitude, and even enjoy it.

The most mundane activities. On the average, we spend almost 40 percent of our waking life doing “maintenance” activities, such as washing, dressi...

Csikszentmihalyi 1990). These are not productive activities that generate income or some tangible product, nor are they leisure activities we do because they are inherently enjoyable. Maintenance activities involve routines we must do repeatedly just to survive (e.g., eat) and to get along with others (e.g., wash and dress). Many people feel that this part of life is “wasted” because it is neither fun nor productive. Thus it would improve the qual...

Relinquishing control over attention. One of the most often heard comments on my concept of psychic energy is that it applies only to Western cultures, and that the highest achievements

of Eastern religions and philosophies depend not on the control of attention, but on the contrary—its surrender. I think this objection is based on a misunderstanding of what the process of “surrendering” or “relinquishing” control of attention entails. In my opinion, these processes of surrender are among the most difficult acts of control that consciousness can accomplish. Given the naturally chaotic state of the mind, to achieve the affectless, unfocused consciousness of the mystic requires enormous effort and long training. Therefore, I believe that at least in this respect East and West are similar: In both cultures, the highest psychic accomplishments depend on the control of attention.

Learning the dynamics of one’s emotions. The therapeutic use of the Experience Sampling Method to record one’s activities and experiences is described in Delespaul (1995), Delle Fave and Massimini (1992), and deVries (1992). The ESM makes it possible for the psychiatrist or therapist (and, by extension, for the patient also) to assess the patient’s quality of life, and to propose changes in activities and habits that might improve it.