Social dimensions of optimal experience: conceptual advances, methods and applications
Résumé
Flow was first described by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in his book Beyond Boredom and Anxiety in 1975. According to the agreed definition of the Europen Flow Research Network (2015), it is a gratifying state of deep involvement and absorption that individuals report when facing a challenging activity and they perceive adequate abilities to cope with these challenges. Flow is described as an optimal experience during which people are deeply motivated to persist in their activities. Research shows that flow experiences can have far-reaching implications in supporting individuals’ growth, by contributing both to personal well-being and full functioning in everyday life.
According to the principle of psychological selection (Csikszentmihalyi & Massimini, 1985), flow is one of the major catalysts of the emergence and growth of social groups, cultures and civilizations (Delle Fave et al., 2011). However, the shared flow should be clearly distinguished from the optimal individual experience in the group parameters (Csikszentmihalyi & Csikszentmihalyi, 1988).
The scientific exploration of the collective aspects of flow, although conceptually very nascent at the international level, is currently of great interest in Europe (Gaggioli et al., 2011; Heutte, 2019; Magyaródi & Oláh, 2017; Pels et al., 2018; Salanova, Rodriguez-Sanchez et al., 2014; van den Hout et al., 2018) and becomes one of the specific objects that a working group of members from the European Flow Researchers Network (EFRN) want to take over. This symposium wishes to share the first advances of this working group.