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Flow, the state of being deeply absorbed in what you are doing, turned up more often at work than in free time in a classic 1989 study. Yet while they worked, people also wished more often that they were doing something else.

Csikszentmihalyi & LeFevre, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1989

Mind

The story behind the card

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934–2021) was a Hungarian-American psychologist at the University of Chicago who named flow after interviewing artists, athletes and chess players who described being carried along by what they were doing. With Judith LeFevre he followed 78 working adults for a week using the experience sampling method: pagers beeped at random moments, and each time people noted what they were doing and how they felt. A moment counted as flow when both the challenge and the person's skill were above their own average. Just over half of the moments at work qualified, against under a fifth of the moments at leisure. People in flow felt better whether at work or not, yet they still said they would rather be doing something else when working. The authors suggested people judge work by the common belief that it is a burden rather than by how it actually feels.

Türkçe oku
1989'daki klasik bir araştırmada insanlar, yaptıkları işe bütünüyle dalma hâlini, yani akışı, boş zamanlarından çok iş başında yaşadı. Yine de çalışırken başka bir şey yapmayı daha sık istediler.
Csikszentmihalyi ve LeFevre, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1989

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934–2021), Chicago Üniversitesi'nde çalışan Macar asıllı Amerikalı bir psikologdu. Yaptıkları işe kendilerini kaptıran sanatçılar, sporcular ve satranççılarla yaptığı görüşmelerden sonra bu hâle “akış” adını verdi. Judith LeFevre ile birlikte 78 çalışan yetişkini bir hafta boyunca izledi. Katılımcıların yanındaki çağrı cihazları gün içinde rastgele anlarda ötüyor, onlar da her seferinde ne yaptıklarını ve nasıl hissettiklerini not ediyordu. Hem zorluk hem de kişinin becerisi kendi ortalamasının üstündeyse o an akış sayıldı. İşteki anların yarısından biraz fazlası bu tanıma uydu; boş zamanda ise bu oran beşte birin altında kaldı. Akıştaki insanlar işte de dışarıda da kendilerini daha iyi hissediyordu; ama çalışırken yine de başka bir şey yapmayı tercih edeceklerini söylüyorlardı. Yazarlara göre insanlar işi, nasıl hissettirdiğine göre değil, bir yük olduğu yönündeki yaygın inanca göre değerlendiriyordu.

Sources and further reading

Image details

Illustration of a potter at work.

Background reading: Flow (psychology)
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