Talk:Flow (psychology)

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Etymology References
Can someone substantiate the claim that "This is where the phrase 'go with the flow' comes from" with some serious etymology? I always thought that "go with the flow" had more to do with doing things the conventional way -- either that or acting the way that "everyone else does". --Ryguasu 05:51, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * I do ot have facts about the etymology, but I'm inclined to agree with Ryguasu. That is, "to go with the flow" does probably not come from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, but is of earlier origins. And I do believe that it means "to do things in the conventional way". --Tbackstr 09:55, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC)

Yep, I think you're right, guys, so I've removed that horrid, confused sentence with a new etymology section, using info from the chapter The Measurement of Flow in Everyday Life: Toward a Theory of Emergent Motivation by Csikszentmihalyi and Rathunde in the Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, volume 40, 1993. Ppe42 14:49, August 8, 2005 (UTC)

This appears to share many things in common with Hack Mode from the hacker lexicon. Perhaps that should be mentioned. (anon edit by 69.19.19.219)


 * Good point. Btw: you can add stuff yourself, no need to ask others :-) Cheers, Peter S. 09:38, 16 February 2006 (UTC)


 * This was added by Phresnel on . --Waldir talk 14:06, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps I'm from another planet (albeit an English speaking one, or so I always thought) -- but this sentence struck me as just way, way off: "The psychological concept of flow as becoming absorbed in an activity is thus unrelated to the older phrase "to go with the flow" which means "to conform"." In some contexts, a speaker may employ the term as a soft way to urge that someone else be a "team player" etc, but in general, "go with the flow" has always meant, I thought, simply "take things as they come" - which relates it to the idea of "being in the moment." I think this reference to conformity is confusing, and pulls the discussion into an unrelated territory. And really, why is an "etymology" section necessary? Surely the term is self-evident to anyone whose English is good enough to read the article.

--

First off, folks, that use of the word 'flow' doesn't come from Mihály Csíkszentmihályi's 2010 interviews -- it comes from his 1990 book and, before that, the research work he did at the University of Chicago. I believe it references that altered sense of time the person in flow experiences as well as being lost in the activity to the point where you don't notice time. But you'd have to go back and reread the original text. The way this section reads now, you'd think Csíkszentmihályi only thought of the term recently!! And that business about 'going with the flow' is sheer speculation and needs to be removed. Seriously, this section REALLY needs rewriting to reflect all that.

Flow and Video Games
Video games seem designed to elicit "flow." (comment by Atticus)


 * Yeah, I noticed that, too. Tetris seems to be very good at this. Also, non-video game Sudoku is fantastic at inducing flow. Peter S. 11:25, 4 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I play a lot of rhythm games and I experience this all the time. I enjoy games such as Beatmania, Dance Dance Revolution, Guitar Hero, and other less popular rhythm games for the sole purpose of achieving flow. It is a good feeling.Andrew zot 07:21, 13 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I disagree with the uncited statement that Guitar Hero is particularly known for achieving flow. Rhythm games work well for many people, but rhythm games don't work best for everyone, nor is Guitar Hero necessarily the seminal example.  They follow the same basic concept as the old Shoot 'em up games. Anecdotally, I'm terrible at them, as are many people I know.  Games that require large scale organizational thinking such as city/civilization builders and strategy games, as well as those that require reflex such as FPS, best help me find flow, and unsurprisingly I find them most enjoyable.  I think it's enough to say that video games are designed around the flow experience, often consciously, and that different players will achieve flow in games that best suit them. (comment by Nphyx)

Comment on flow in Video Games, by George Blank

In 1978, I wrote an article applying and analyzing the concept of flow in computer games. The two part article, "Writing Good Computer Games," appeared in the January and February 1979 issues of SoftSide magazine (Milford NH)and was reprinted in Judge's Guild Journal, Issue L, 1979. The concept of flow was critical to me in writing the first graphical "God game" for microcomputers, "Santa Paravia and Fiumaccio." That game launched a billion dollar industry of games based on guns versus butter economic tradeoffs resulting in graphical empire building and character development.

Personal definition after flow experiences

You know you had ‘Flow’ when you have just completed a challenging task, and you do not know where you got the extraordinary creativity from, that you just demonstrated. You felt exhilarated. Your concentration was so deeply focused on what you were doing that nothing else mattered. You performed at your peak, with extreme inner fulfillment, with the satisfaction that your previous limits were surpassed. The pure pleasure distilled from doing the task overwhelmed all external influences. It catapulted you into the harmonious flow of spontaneity, creativity, effectuality and natural psychic energy.--Louispalm 09:47, 2 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Comparison between flow experience and video games is of course foundation of famous Zenclavier article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ceplm (talk • contribs) 09:36, 18 December 2006 (UTC).

Someone might find this paper interesting: I don't know if it is really good for mass consumption ;), so adding it to the Talk page instead. If others feel it is of value, could add to external links: "GameFlow: A Model for Evaluating Player Enjoyment in Games", (PENELOPE SWEETSER AND PETA WYETH The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Australia); ACM Computers in Entertainment, Vol. 3, No. 3, July 2005.

--edited by Chinmay —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.163.212.195 (talk) 13:50, 29 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I removed the portion jabbering on about MMORPGs because flow is not exclusive to that genre, and the reference used makes no mention of MMORPGs either, which pretty much implies the contributer is -- much like most MMORPGers-- biased toward that genre to the exclusion of others. Ffxi frohike 9:14 PST, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Video games would seam to negate this statement made in the article: "Up to now, there is no ideal possibility available to directly investigate causal consequences of flow experiences as it is difficult to manipulate such a specific state of consciousness in the laboratory." Video Gamers enter a state of flow very quickly and all the equipment needed for them to enter this state of flow could easily fit inside a lab. The state of flow could then be altered by causing a distraction and measuring resulting game performance, sounds easy enough to me. -- Aaron Klapheck 98.238.167.205 (talk) 03:39, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Faux Flow?

"At the same time, ironically, his noble project has been subverted as his theories have been applied to design video games that are full of nearly addictive faux flow experiences, which remorsely consume precious time. The Playstation was released in 1994 and the psychology of flow has been a central concept of game design." http://blogcritics.org/flow-the-psychology-of-optimal-experience/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 180.255.12.108 (talk) 00:57, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

That Faux Flow article sounds like someone who is pretending to know what flow is citing it as an argument when they're actually way over their head and don't know what they're talking about. 2605:6000:F243:7800:9C35:2361:1A67:A48F (talk) 23:37, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

Goal Attainability
I have added to the goal component to account for attainability. Csikszentmihalyi emphasizes this stating that one's goal must be reasonably attainable to avoid frustrations that would disrupt the flow process, but must also be difficult enough to engage the individual enough to allow for the experience of flow. As an example, I would be unlikely to achieve flow through attempting to solve extraordinarily complex applied mathematics equations, whereas learning to play guitar may allow me to reach this state. L00ptid 01:20, 11 April 2007 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by L00ptid (talk • contribs) 00:47, 11 April 2007 (UTC).

Csíkszentmihályi-centric
Questionable statement: "Proposed by psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, the concept has been widely referenced across a variety of fields." - if that is so, why are almost all the references by Csíkszentmihályi? And why are none of the others scholarly? If it's studied in psychology, at least reference a journal. I say change the sentence to "Proposed by psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, a number of books have since been written on the topic." Winter Breeze (talk) 09:21, 5 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I'd like to second this with a request for anyone knowledgeable about the subject to add sources other than Csíkszentmihályi to the article. As the supposed opposite of something as fundamentally accepted as apathy, there have GOT to be some other sources out there with information specifically pertaining to this concept. KrisWood (talk) 04:42, 6 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Agreed, this article remains very Csíkszentmihályi-centric. If this is just one researcher's theory, then maybe the article can be scaled way back to an encyclopedic summary of the idea rather than an in-depth essay. Henry chianski (talk) 00:56, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

Removed External Link
I have removed the following link: "* The Flow Experience: The Summa Cum Lousy Of Bad Psychology Contrarian view of flow." It seemed improper for an encyclopedia to link to a source that includes no author name, contact address or any other information that would make it credible. Dvyjns (talk) 21:51, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I also removed the meaningandhappiness.com link, kaspersky flagged it as having a nasty virus when you clicked the link. Phoenixthebird (talk) 15:49, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Consequences of loss of flow
It would perhaps be interesting to add a section on what happens if flow is broken for some reason. ISTR a report that it takes at least 15 minutes to get back in. My personal experiences include complete loss of concentration and immediate energy deficits, and up to having to call it a day and need to sleep. I don't have references, however. 85.179.81.31 (talk) 14:44, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Peopleware mentioned the 15 minute immersion time required to get back into flow (http://javatroopers.com/Peopleware.html#Chapter_10). 71.56.134.253 (talk) 13:29, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

You can merge a few points
a few points in the list of identification of flow can be merged, making it 7 points. Also some point describe effects of the flow, but some describe ways to achieve and attain it, and I think does should be in a separate place. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.125.8.206 (talk) 22:58, 14 May 2008 (UTC)


 * This list has to be exactly 9 items because that's what Csíkszentmihályi's theory proposes. - Do c  t  orW  20:57, 7 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Even though #3 and #9 are practically the same?!? -- Jokes Free4Me (talk) 15:53, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
 * (Or, reading again, perhaps #3 could use a better explanation?)
 * Also, your point of effects vs. approach is a good one. Having both such kinds of info for each point would IMO be great. -- still Jokes Free4Me (talk) 15:53, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Joy, creativity, the process of total involvement with life
i added "For a general audience [Csíkszentmihályi describes flow as] the positive aspects of human experience—joy, creativity, the process of total involvement with life.”  I am new to the site.  So go easy on me please.  I just wanted to add something, because i'm having issues using Wikipedia.  I'm finding it excessively difficult to navigate...but yeah, just wanted to add something from his book Flow: The psychology of Optimal Experience

Cheers, Lucy

--ToasterCoster (talk) 00:30, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

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Extrinsic applications
Only Csíkszentmihályi seems to have published suggestions for extrinsic applications of the Flow concept, such as design methods for playgrounds to elicit the Flow experience.
 * I'm not entirely sure this is true. There are many applications in design, but they go by other names. Viriditas (talk) 12:08, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Trance state
I'm surprised there is nothing about trance and altered states in this article. Viriditas (talk) 12:10, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

This is true (ref. to above comment). In accordance with current work on the nature of the unconscious mind, the non-conscious part of mind is much more powerful than the one we "think" is in control. Really the primary importance of Flow is harnessing that power. When we drive an automobile, we have a tendency for our conscious mind to be distracted, hence the radio and even cell phone use. That is because the unconscious is driving the car, and the conscious mind is merely along for the ride. I have met one other person who agreed that while driving alone we can suspend all conscious thought, only being "awoken" by an exceptional event or by reaching our consciously determined destination. Mea (talk) 15:48, 2 February 2015 (UTC)


 * I felt I should comment on these, because a trance state is such an interesting idea. I can see there is likely a connection between flow state and a trance state, or at least a slight dissociation, which can be connected to the concept of a trance state. I found this article that might lend more information on that connection, and perhaps I will return later to add some of that information.https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22651681/ NotQuiteAllison (talk) 04:23, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Etymology
Flow is so named because during Csíkszentmihályi's 1975 interviews several people described their 'flow' experiences using the metaphor of a water current carrying them along.[3]
 * This needs to be checked out for accuracy. Other reliable sources say this term came from rock climbing. Viriditas (talk) 12:16, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Csikszentmihalyi wrote about the origin of his use of the word flow in the following book: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Isabella Selega Csikszentmihalyi, Optimal Experience: Psychological studies of flow in consciousness, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988, p. 29. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.223.4.58 (talk) 11:04, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

I have heard Csikszentmihalyi himself at two conferences - once in Washington State on Flow and Montessori, and once at the Positive Psychology conference in Washington, D.C. 2006 - explain that the term "flow" came from the way his initial subjects described their experiences. They would say "it was just flowing" or "I was flowing along [in my activity]," and such. Many specifically used the word "flow" to describe their experience. Fombom (talk) 03:20, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

The one time I totally achieved flow was actually while filling a tea kettle with water. The last thing I remember before entering that state is that I would not be anxious about waiting for the kettle to fill. After that I lost all sense of time and presence. I stood there, holding the teakettle, bathed in sunlight, for an indeterminate amount of time. After I returned to conscious thinking, it might have been possible to estimate the time spent there, but I never did. Water is the most evocative association we have with the word flow. Mea (talk) 15:33, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Only Csíkszentmihályi
Only Csíkszentmihályi seems to have published suggestions for extrinsic applications of the Flow concept, such as design methods for playgrounds to elicit the Flow experience. (1) Doesn't game desing discuss ways to design games to facilitate flow? (2) Where is the reference for Csíkszentmihályi's suggestions for playground-design? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.203.138.201 (talk) 17:33, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Applications of flow, and references
People have been freely adding applications of flow without any references. I removed these just now:


 * MMA champion and Karate master Lyoto Machida utilizes meditation techniques before fights in order to attain mushin, a concept of absolute focus in all respects equal to Flow.


 * Waiters and waitresses often describe experiencing flow when they feel that everything would collapse if they had one more table or one more person to wait on; when they're rushing but not too busy or overwhelmed.

We need more than "Hey, that's sounds like something I know about; let me add an example". Even a reference provided for a published discussion of mushin or feeling maxed out when waiting on tables seems insufficient to me. I think we need a published discussion which explicitly connects the activity in question to the psychological concept of flow or at least to a concept (like "in the zone") that has been explicitly connected to flow in some other published reliable sources. - Do c  t  orW  17:28, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I have removed the following from Applications freestyling and flow:


 * Lyricists (particularly hip-hop Emcees) who freestyle experience flow when formulating rhymes off the top of his or her head. This is commonly known in hip-hop culture as "flowing.

Flow in rap (here called hip hop) is about the rhythms and rhymes. Flow in rap is used for both freestyled and written lyrics.

Kåre Bjerke 94.18.157.69 (talk) 18:59, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

am sure The term "flow" was used in much the same way aroune 1950 or so. I beleive I read it in a magazine, possibly Popular Psychology or Scientific American. The article was probably about sports mastery, and I recall thinking that it described my own feeling about rock climbing. I wa a member of the Chicago Mountaineering Club at the time. Someone may be able to check this out. The use of this term is not a recent invention. folsomdon. dd —Preceding unsigned comment added by 182.48.112.2 (talk) 09:04, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Mechanism of Flow - Miller?
''Psychologists have found that one's mind can only attend to a certain amount of information at a time. According to Miller's 1956 study, ...''

A link to this would be very helpful. --LCE(LCE talk contribs) 11:02, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Update: The first name of the author of the study is also not given. Who is Miller? 128.32.112.140 (talk) 23:01, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

The Magical Number Seven, plus or minus two: Some limits on our capacity for processing information, published in 1956, by George Miller. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magical_Number_Seven%2C_Plus_or_Minus_Two 222.154.51.142 (talk) 12:21, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Flow and the subconscious
There are quite a few mentions of people feeling as if they are no longer consciously performing a task... I would like to see something about the neurological mechanisms of this phenomenon. While I am in a state of flow I have often got the feeling that if I allowed my conscious mind to take over, it would fail in the task that the subconscious was succeeding in. Like the way the basic microcontroller in a washing machine could run it much more reliably and efficiently than a full windows PC hooked up to it, even though the windows PC is viewed as a more "intelligent" machine. 192.198.151.37 (talk) 13:00, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Non-action
The teachings of Buddhism speak of a state of mind known as the "action of inaction" or "doing without doing" that greatly resembles the idea of flow. It sounds to me like the author is getting Buddhism and Taoism mixed up (non-action - wu wei). If not, as has been said, we need a citation for this if it is to be kept at all. Solri (talk) 16:07, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Validity, Capitalization, Definition and Original, collaborative research
This article seems to me to have validity ONLY if it is about something specific etc in this case Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's concept of Flow.

His concept of Flow should not to be confused with other uses of the word "flow", any more than the word Affect should be confused with other meanings and uses of the word "affect". In my opinion this causes some confusion in a general article such as this, for a varied readership etc, which could be avoided if the word Flow were capitalised where it refers to the proper noun coined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and left in lower case when it is used as a simple noun or verb.

To me the sort of meta-theory that this article is in danger of trying to set out, or which this discussion seems to in parts request it to become, is something else entirely, namely an original piece of work, collaboratively authored, but nonetheless which is therefore unsuitable as a wikipedia article.

I have not tagged the article as original research but there seems to be enough grounds to see it as such at this time.

LookingGlass (talk) 20:11, 11 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Feels legitimate enough to me. Although the differentiation between 'Flow' and 'HyperFocus' seem to be intangible. also i seem to have trouble seeing why the word 'affect' is used rather than 'effect' in one of the section headings --NikkeKatski &#91;Elite&#93; (talk) 14:38, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Flow in the Web
I like the idea of flow while surfing the web. Sounds relative logical that that can happen.

However, the Hsiang reference is a bit often in there. It's the first reference I ever saw where single letters of the alphabet were not enough. ;-)

So that must be significantly shortened and be more concise rather than just a listing of accumulated citations of unknown individuals gathered by one research paper. Guess the Wikipedia doesn't want to be a forum of lots of individuals opinions if these are not even known. Otherwise there'd be 3 billion lines of everyone soon in here. ;-) These more 1.5 pages should shrink to say 2x 5 lines. And not a single citation of web users in there at all.

Still wondering if web related flow would be a special case of knowledge gathering flow in general, just in a different medium. Against web as flow experiences speaks actually that you got lots of breaks in between through page loading etc.

Cheers, Peterthewall (talk) 11:49, 21 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I've removed the section because it was giving far too much attention to a single work.  The entire contents of the section should be given one or two sentences elsewhere on the page, not several pages of quotations. Nippashish (talk) 21:07, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

What are the problems of this model?
Concerning the paragraph that starts with "Several problems of this model have been discussed in literature." This paragraph does not make complete sense and does not seem to have a point. I would just delete it, but I'm giving someone an opportunity to improve it first, to make their point. If not fixed, it should be deleted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 150.155.144.88 (talk) 23:57, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
 * No, don't delete it. Not only is there nothing wrong with having a paragraph or section dedicated to skepticism, in fact there should ALWAYS be a skeptical component to anything remotely approaching science. Indeed, to NOT have a paragraph or section dedicated to skepticism is to produce an article that leans towards marketing hype, unquestioning ideology, or both (they typically go hand in hand): always - completely regardless of how well an article is written, and even for phenomena that seem self-evident on explanation. I can think of one scientist who wrote that he himself frequently tried to overturn his favourite hypotheses, and he thought it important to have that approach if one was to consider oneself a scientist.


 * I do not say the above as someone with an agenda other than the promotion of scientific thinking (which is not the same as being a "fill the bottle" scientific technician, as one philosopher of science pointed out - I also wouldn't say it's easy to get right, or that I can say I get it right. I would say one should permanently strive for it). I personally reviewed a lot of literature on Csikszentmihalyi's Flow back in 1991, and even proposed a way of testing for it among skilled typists. On the whole, I thought Csikszentmihalyi's model made sense. But OF COURSE I reviewed critical literature.


 * This article is about the concept of flow, so needs to be mainly dedicated to that. BUT if it is to be an encyclopedic article, OF COURSE it should contain something referring to critical literature. GOOD encyclopedic articles do that, and it does NOT detract from either the article or the concept. It adds value.


 * The only changes one should make to that paragraph are to consider extending it and turning it into a section. Csikszentmihalyi himself will have reviewed and addressed some of the critical literature, and his own responses could be incorporated in any expansion. If one can't be bothered to do that, one should leave it alone rather than vandalise it. Wotnow (talk) 18:26, 14 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I added a new section about criticism, but I'm not used to formatting in Wikipedia so I think it's broken... I'm sorry :( Frances Soong (talk) 21:14, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

I'm no expert on Flow but it strikes me as awfully similar (the same as) Maslow's concept of being in a state of B-cognition, yet no references to Maslow. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Charlierossiter (talk • contribs) 20:16, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Incomplete parenthetical citations
Many of the parenthetical citations do not correspond with full bibliographic information appearing elsewhere in this article. I've fixed a few of these, where a title or publication were provided in the text. Someone more familiar with the literature on this subject might be better equipped to locate details for those providing only author(s) and date. —Shelley V. Adams 04:40, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Failure to Mention Its Possible Negative Effects
The mental state described here can also mean losing one's contact with reality and surrounding in a negative, potentially harmful way. For example, when one is driving, he/she has to focus on the environment instead of getting lost in thoughts, which could potentially lead to a serious accident. It seems to be a promotion for the marketable concept of "flow" rather than a scientific examination on the subject.


 * This is a serious shortcoming in this article and I wish to bring attention to it. --Pitke (talk) 14:20, 5 September 2016 (UTC)


 * How about moving the 'Criticism' to 'Possible Negative Effects'? The content of 'Criticism' doesn't sound like criticism of the psychological concept 'Flow', but more like a description of negative consequences Thomas-rebele (talk) 17:01, 10 April 2017 (UTC)


 * I don't understand how the scenario you described is flow. Not paying attention to the task you are doing is the opposite of flow.  2604:2D80:D50B:1900:6477:D5FD:295F:BE7E (talk) 23:32, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

Tonal Shift
This whole article needs to be rewritten to become a bit more objective and formal. It reads quite unprofessionally. For instance, refer to the section on Mechanism. Statements like "That may seem like a large number" come across as sloppy. There is very little scientific analysis in the whole of the article. Where is the research??? Seems to be very little valuable information here.

Seriously... "Going ham"? Who wrote this article??

In all honesty, the best way for someone searching for flow in a task is just to go out into the real world and experience life for themselves. The abstract study of the phenomenon will likely yield minor results. No All Who Wander Are Lost (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 00:39, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

brainwave frequencies?
Can anyone provide information on what specific brainwave frequencies are associated with being in flow or zone?

Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.111.150.56 (talk) 00:16, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Change picture
Change that ugly picture with the girl doing *something* to a more relevant picture demonstrating a clearly defined TASK. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.183.122.51 (talk) 10:16, 27 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Clearly 'ugly' is a subjective term and while i get your point the picture is trying to show the "Focus" aspect. The completing task's more easily is merely a biproduct. NikkeKatski &#91;Elite&#93; (talk) 14:41, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

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Removed the (one source) template placed in Nov 2019. Said problem is not apparent at this time.
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Wiki Education assignment: Adult Development Winter 2023
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Value of Future Directions Section?
The final section on future directions reads like it's randomly thrown together. There must be hundreds of potential directions for future work, there always is, why mention these ones in particular? In fact, why mention any? Some discussion of future research may be fitting for an academic paper (though even there it is often a tick-the-box component), I don't see it's value in a wikipedia article. Bollus101 (talk) 15:41, 24 March 2023 (UTC)


 * This section was random seeming... I added a more comprehensive view of the potential areas of future research to the section. I also agree that the implications for future research may not have a place in a wikipedia article, but rather at the end of a research paper. But I did improve the section and attempted to make it fit the article more Positive not popular pysch (talk) 20:32, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Performance and learning
I think we should improve this section to better reflect the evidences on correlational relationship and causal relationship:

- Flow experiences imply a growth principle. -> Flow increases performance, no evidence

- To maintain that flow state, one must seek increasingly greater challenges. -> Performance increases flow, longitudinal evidence only introduced way later in the section

- By increasing time spent in flow, intrinsic motivation and self-directed learning also increases. -> Flow increases performance, but longitudinal studies are a type of correlational research, not causal research

- Flow has been linked to persistence and achievement in activities while also helping to lower anxiety during various activities and raise self-esteem. -> we should verify if "linked" and "helping" is causal or correlational

- In the long run, flow experiences in a specific activity may lead to higher performance in that activity as flow is positively correlated with a higher subsequent motivation to perform and to perform well. -> I think we should avoid speculation here Ndminhkhoi46 (talk) 02:22, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

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Group Flow and Physiology
Adding to group flow (making the distinction between individual flow and group flow more clear)

Adding a section about the physiology of group flow. Due to developing research about the cardiovascular synchronization that occurs when group flow occurs. Snijdewint et al. Treeluver20 (talk) 19:31, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

"Flow (psychology" listed at Redirects for discussion
The redirect [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Flow_(psychology&redirect=no Flow (psychology] has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at  until a consensus is reached. Utopes (talk / cont) 01:49, 9 April 2024 (UTC)