Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
reviewed by Edmund Sherman
 Title: Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience Author(s): Mihalyi Csikszentmihaly Publisher: Harper Collins, New York ISBN: 0060920432, Pages: 303, Year: 1991 Search for book at Amazon.com
This informative book is based on twenty years of research by the author and his colleagues at the University of Chicago in which they used an innovative research technique called “Experience Sampling Method.” The fruit of this research was the discovery of a phenomenon called “flow,” which the author describes as “the way people describe their state of mind when consciousness is harmoniously ordered, and they want to pursue whatever they are doing for its own sake” (p. 6).
The kinds of activity that can produce flow are extremely varied, including art, sports, games, hobbies, and work. The key word here is activity, for Csikszentmihalyi makes it clear that flow does not come from inertia or passive pursuits. In fact, his research on effects of television leads him to the conclusion that it makes viewers passive and discontented. Contentment is much more apt to come from the flow experience, which is... (preview truncated at 150 words.) Cite This Article as: Teachers College Record Volume 93 Number 1, 1991, p. 184-186
http://www.tcrecord.org/library ID Number: 266, Date Accessed: 9/2/2010 9:55:46 PM
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