Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Popular Books

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Biography & Facts

Mihaly Robert Csikszentmihalyi ( MEE-hy CHEEK-sent-mee-HAH-yee, Hungarian: Csíkszentmihályi Mihály Róbert, pronounced [ˈt͡ʃiːksɛntmihaːji ˈmihaːj] ; 29 September 1934 – 20 October 2021) was a Hungarian-American psychologist. He recognized and named the psychological concept of "flow", a highly focused mental state conducive to productivity. He was the Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Management at Claremont Graduate University. Earlier he served as the head of the department of psychology at the University of Chicago and of the department of sociology and anthropology at Lake Forest College. Early life Mihaly Robert Csikszentmihalyi was born on 29 September 1934 in Fiume, now known as Rijeka, then part of the Kingdom of Italy. His family name derives from the village of Csíkszentmihály in Transylvania. He was the third son of a career diplomat at the Hungarian Consulate in Fiume. In 1944, when Csikszentmihalyi was ten years old, one of his two older half-brothers was killed in the Siege of Budapest, and the other, Moricz, was sent to labor camps in Siberia by the Soviets. Decades later, Mihaly and Moricz were reunited in Budapest.His father was appointed Hungarian Ambassador to Italy shortly after the Second World War, moving the family to Rome. When Communists took over Hungary in 1949, Csikszentmihalyi's father resigned rather than choosing to work for the regime. The Communist regime responded by expelling his father and stripping the family of their Hungarian citizenship. To earn a living, his father opened a restaurant in Rome, and Csikszentmihalyi dropped out of school to help with the family income. At this time, the young Csikszentmihalyi, then travelling in Switzerland, saw Carl Jung give a talk on the psychology of UFO sightings.Csikszentmihalyi immigrated to the United States at age 22, working nights to support himself while studying at the University of Chicago. He received a B.A. in 1959 and a Ph.D. in 1965, both from the University of Chicago. He then taught at Lake Forest College before becoming a professor at the University of Chicago in 1969. Work Csikszentmihalyi was noted for his work in the study of happiness and creativity, but is best known as the architect of the notion of flow and for his years of research and writing on the topic. Martin Seligman, former president of the American Psychological Association, described Csikszentmihalyi as the world's leading researcher on positive psychology. Csikszentmihalyi once said: "Repression is not the way to virtue. When people restrain themselves out of fear, their lives are by necessity diminished. Only through freely chosen discipline can life be enjoyed and still kept within the bounds of reason." His works are influential and are widely cited. Flow In his seminal work, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Csíkszentmihályi outlined his theory that people are happiest when they are in a state of flow—a state of concentration or complete absorption with the activity at hand and the situation. It is a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter. The flow state is colloquially known as being in the zone or in the groove. It is an optimal state of intrinsic motivation, where the person is fully immersed in what they are doing. This is a feeling everyone has at times, characterized by a feeling of great absorption, engagement, fulfillment, and skill—and during which temporal concerns (time, food, ego-self, etc.) are typically ignored.In an interview with Wired magazine, Csíkszentmihályi described flow as "being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost."Csikszentmihályi characterized nine component states of achieving flow: challenge-skill balance merging of action and awareness clarity of goals immediate and unambiguous feedback concentration on the task at hand paradox of control transformation of time loss of self-consciousness autotelic experienceTo achieve a flow state, a balance must be struck between the challenge of the task and the skill of the performer. If the task is too easy or too difficult, flow cannot occur as both skill level and challenge level must be matched and high; if skill and challenge are low and matched, apathy results. Autotelicity One state that Csikszentmihalyi researched was that of the autotelic personality. The autotelic personality is one in which a person performs acts because they are intrinsically rewarding, rather than to achieve external goals. Csikszentmihalyi described the autotelic personality as a trait possessed by people who can learn to enjoy situations that most others would find miserable. Research has shown that aspects associated with the autotelic personality include curiosity, persistence, and humility. Motivation Most of Csikszentmihalyi's final works focused on the idea of motivation and the factors that contribute to motivation, challenge, and overall success. One personality characteristic that Csikszentmihalyi researched in detail was that of intrinsic motivation. He and his colleagues found that intrinsically motivated people were more likely to be goal-directed and enjoy challenges that would lead to an increase in overall happiness.Csikszentmihalyi identified intrinsic motivation as a powerful trait to optimize and enhance positive experience, feelings, and overall well-being as a result of challenging experiences. The results indicated a new personality construct, which he called work orientation, characterized by "achievement, endurance, cognitive structure, order, play, and low impulsivity". A high level of work orientation in students is said to be a better predictor of grades and fulfillment of long-term goals than any school or household environmental influence. Personal life Csikszentmihalyi married Isabella Selega in 1961. He had two sons: Christopher Csíkszentmihályi, an artist and professor at Cornell University, and Mark Csikszentmihalyi, chair of the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of California, Berkeley.Csikszentmihalyi died on 20 October 2021 of cardiac arrest, at his home in Claremont, California, at the age of 87. Awards In 2009, Csikszentmihalyi was awarded the Clifton Strengths Prize. He received the Széchenyi Prize at a ceremony in Budapest in 2011. He was awarded the Hungarian Order of Merit in 2014. He was a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of both the National Academy of Education and the Academy of Leisure Sciences. Commemoration On 29 September 2023, Csikszentmihalyi's 89th birthday was remembered with a Google Doodle. The Just Dance character, Mihaly, is named after Csikszentmihalyi. Publications Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly (1975). Beyond Boredom and Anxiety: Experiencing Flow in Work an.... 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  • Flourish synopsis, comments

    Flourish

    Martin E. P. Seligman

    From the bestselling author of Learned Optimism and Authentic Happiness comes “a relentlessly optimistic guidebook on finding and securing individual happiness” (Kirkus Reviews).Wi...

  • The Systems Model of Creativity synopsis, comments

    The Systems Model of Creativity

    Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

    This first volume of the Collected Works of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi represents his work on Art and Creativity. Starting with his seminal 1964 study on creativity up to his 2010 pub...

  • Living in Flow synopsis, comments

    Living in Flow

    Sky Nelson-Isaacs

    Go beyond simplified selfhelp practices to harness the scientific principles of synchronicity and flowso you can live better, work smarter, and find purpose in your life. When we a...

  • American Happiness Propaganda synopsis, comments

    American Happiness Propaganda

    Colin Bear

    The most famous books in the field of positive psychology have been published in the United States, repectively by authors living and working in the USA, like Tal BenShahar (`Happi...

  • The Evolving Self synopsis, comments

    The Evolving Self

    Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

    The acclaimed sequel to the international bestseller Flow: an intelligent, inspiring guide to unlocking the evolutionary history of our present consciousness, and “becoming at one ...

  • Flow and the Foundations of Positive Psychology synopsis, comments

    Flow and the Foundations of Positive Psychology

    Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

    The second volume in the collected works of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi covers about thirty years of Csikszentmihalyi‘s work on three main and interconnected areas of study: attention,...

  • Frames of Mind synopsis, comments

    Frames of Mind

    Howard E. Gardner

    The book that revolutionized our understanding of human intelligence. Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences has been hailed by educators for decades and applied in hun...

  • Applications of Flow in Human Development and Education synopsis, comments

    Applications of Flow in Human Development and Education

    Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

    The third volume of the collected works of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi covers his work on the application of flow in areas that go beyond the field of leisure where the concept was fir...