ArticleFrontiers in psychology2020
Investigating the "Flow" Experience: Key Conceptual and Operational Issues.
Article in Frontiers in psychology, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 33 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
33 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- The Relationship Between Personality and Flow: A Meta-Analysis.Journal of personality · 2026Pooled it
- Getting into a "Flow" state: a systematic review of flow experience in neurological diseases.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation · 2021Pooled it
- Being at work improves stress, craving, and mood for people with opioid use disorder: Ecological momentary assessment during a randomized trial of experimental employment in a contingency-management-based therapeutic workplace.Behaviour research and therapy · 2022Trial
- Mental energy and psychological flow in sport: a perspective beyond physical preparation.BMC psychology · 2026Article
- Mindful Embodied Movement: Study Protocol for a 12-Week Modern Dance-Mindfulness Intervention and Mixed-Methods Randomized Controlled Trial in Recreational Adult Dancers.Methods and protocols · 2026Article
- Determinants of university students' intention to use generative AI tools for personalized English learning: mediating effect of flow experience and moderating effect of personal innovativeness.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Mapping the relationship between flow experience and music performance anxiety: a scoping review.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Review
- Experiences and perceptions of students in occupational therapy regarding the use of desktop virtual environments-based simulation: a qualitative study.BMC medical education · 2025Article
- Towards Optimal Health Through Boredom Aversion Based on Experiencing Psychological Flow in a Self-Directed Exercise Regime-A Scoping Review of Recent Research.Sports (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- The Influence of the Information Richness of Interfaces on Consumers' Purchase Intention: The Sequential Mediating Effects of Cognitive Load, Mental Imagery, and Flow Experience.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Understanding the association of calligraphy activities with flow experience, peace of mind, and self-focused attention among university students.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Flow and intuition: a systems neuroscience comparison.Neuroscience of consciousness · 2025Article
- The role of recreational flow experience and well-being on re-participation intention: recreational sport participants.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Mindfulness as a key mechanism: linking flow and emotional intelligence to academic engagement in Chinese university students.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Article
- Exploring the relationships between psychological variables and loot box engagement, part 2: exploratory analyses of complex relationships.Royal Society open science · 2024Article
- Forgetting ourselves in flow: an active inference account of flow states and how we experience ourselves within them.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Exploring the relationships between psychological variables and loot box engagement, part 1: pre-registered hypotheses.Royal Society open science · 2023Article
- Emotional labor mediates the associations between self-consciousness and flow in dancers.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- The impact of self-directed learning experience and course experience on learning satisfaction of university students in blended learning environments: the mediating role of deep and surface learning approach.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
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Abstract
The "flow" experience (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975) has been the focus of a large body of empirical work spanning more than four decades. Nevertheless, advancement in understanding - beyond what Csikszentmihalyi uncovered during his initial breakthrough in 1975 - has been modest. In this conceptual analysis, it is argued that progress within the field has been impeded by a lack of consistency in how flow is operationalized, and that this inconsistency in part reflects an underlying confusion regarding what flow is. Flow operationalizations from papers published within the past 5 years are reviewed. Across the 42 reviewed studies, flow was operationalized in 24 distinct ways. Three specific points of inconsistency are then highlighted: (1) inconsistences in operationalizing flow as a continuous versus discrete construct, (2) inconsistencies in operationalizing flow as inherently enjoyable (i.e., "autotelic") or not, and (3) inconsistencies in operationalizing flow as dependent on versus distinct from the task characteristics proposed to elicit it (i.e., the conditions/antecedents). After tracing the origins of these discrepancies, the author argues that, in the interest of conceptual intelligibility, flow should be conceptualized and operationalized exclusively as a discrete, highly enjoyable, "optimal" state of consciousness, and that this state should be clearly distinguished from the conditions proposed to elicit it. He suggests that more mundane instances of goal-directed engagement are better conceived and operationalized as variations in task involvement rather than variations in flow. Additional ways to achieve greater conceptual and operational consistency within the field are suggested.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.