Poster Presentation 6th World Congress on Positive Psychology 2019

Flowabilities: How do task crafting, self-efficacy, and flow metacognition influence flow in personally meaningful activities? (#832)

Qing Yan 1 , Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi 1
  1. Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, CA, United States

It has been over 40 years since the psychological phenomenon of flow was initially identified and studied (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975). Cumulative literature has suggested that individuals in general are capable of self-regulating flow for accomplishing productive activities, and the ability is potentially malleable (e.g., Wilson & Moneta, 2016). However, there seems no research examining individuals’ malleable abilities in self-regulating flow. To narrow this gap, I drew on literature in both flow and positive organizational psychology, and conducted a cross-sectional quantitative survey study. The study tested the predictive effect of three malleable personal abilities (i.e., task crafting, self-efficacy, flow metacognition) on flow in doing personally meaningful activities. A survey with validated scales and open questions was distributed among a convenient sample of 137 across the US, China, and other countries. Quantitative data were analyzed with correlation and multiple regression. Results showed that all these three abilities were strong predictors of flow and they together accounted for 38.36% of variance of flow. I expect findings of this research to make unique contributions to theories and research in flow and positive organizational psychology, and provide useful implications to flow-based interventions at individual level in meaningful life domains.