Experimental Study of Flow Experience: State-Related and Performance Factors Affected by Personality Antecedents

Abstract

There is a lack of experiments about Csikszentmihalyi’s flow, so to support the cause-and-effect relationships between the conditions and the subjective experience we performed an experimental study. We measured the state-related aspects of flow and antiflow conditions and the personality antecedents of the people.
28 healthy adults took part in the laboratory study. They played the game Tetris under flow, boredom, and anxiety conditions, then completed self-reported questionnaires related to each condition. Participants also underwent a psychological evaluation. Our results replicated previous results about the positive mood-inducing effect of flow and the optimal challenge level of the activity. Flow proneness can help people to have higher flow under more severe conditions (anxiety). Moderate level of difficulty can enhance flow the most, a U-shaped curve was revealed where boredom and anxiety conditions shows lower levels of optimal experience. The study supports earlier results and makes flow research more open to both the development of intervention programs and future laboratory and physiological investigations.