Models of optimal experience (flow)
Description
Giovanni Moneta's work, in collaboration with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, models daily measures of subjective experience in relation to the concomitant levels of perceived challenges and skills in activities. By using different parameterizations of the construct of balance between challenge and skill, and estimating these parameterizations by multilevel statistical techniques that control for within-subjects correlation of responses, individual differences in scaling, and autocorrelation, they gathered confirmatory evidence in favor of flow theory. In particular, the balance of challenges and skills was found to be positively related to several facets of daily experience (e.g., concentration, wish to do the activity, involvement, and happiness) in various contexts of activity (e.g., being in school or work, with relatives, with friends, and in solitude).
More recently, Giovanni Moneta, in collaboration with colleagues in the U.S., Japan, China, and Italy, has begun an investigation of the similarities and differences of flow models across different cultures. The preliminary evidence suggests that the basic structure of the flow model holds in all cultures. Nevertheless, there seem to be important cultural differences as to whether flow occurs most often in high-challenge/high-skill situations, as predicted by the original flow model, or in low-challenge/high-skill situations, as it appears to be, for example, among Hong Kong Chinese college students. It remains to be seen if these cross-cultural differences consists of (a) differences in the conditions within which the same state is experienced, and/or (b) differences between two states, wherein the first state would be the originally defined flow, and the second would be a state of elated relaxation akin to those states that can be achieved through meditation practices. The answer to this question has potentially relevant implications to the organization of school and work environments, particularly in multicultural societies.