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Review: Self-Expansion and Flow in Couple’s Momentary Experiences

The field of mental health is moving away from simply ameliorating psychological

distress and towards promoting life fulfillment and well-being. In this positive psychology

movement, the concept of flow is an important component. Flow is the psychological concept

that describes the sense of ultimate meaning and fulfillment felt when engaging in an

intrinsically rewarding activity. Separately, intimate relationships are among the most fulfilling

experiences in life. However, few academic works have investigated the intersection between

flow experiences and intimate relationships. In this article, I will review one of the few journal

articles attempting to address this gap.

Graham (2008) investigated the application of flow theory to intimate relationships

through the self-expansion framework. Self-expansion theory suggests that individuals have a

fundamental drive towards new and challenging experiences that will improve their own

competencies and sense of self, which will allow them to better survive and thrive in the world.

Intimate relationships are an important means towards achieving self-expansion; love serves as a

motivation towards self-development and taking on a partner into our own identity. Graham

(2008) aimed to test various predictions of self-expansion theory in romantic relationships by

hypothesizing that; couples who together engaged in more exciting activities (experiencing more

excitement and arousal) would experience higher relationship quality and closeness during or

immediately after engaging in those activities. These exciting activities bear a strong similarity to

flow experiences and so the author also examined how the results could be incorporated into

flow theory. Specifically, flow theory suggests that flow experiences are inherently enjoyable.

So, the author investigated whether the increased feelings of enjoyment experienced during joint

exciting activities explained the increase in relationship quality and satisfaction.

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The author utilized the experience sampling method (ESM), which involves

electronically notifying study participants at several random points during the study period (1

week) whereby participants then immediately completed a questionnaire detailing the nature of

their current activity and describing their own psychological state in various measurements such

as affect, motivation, concentration and engagement. The study participants were a small group

of cohabiting couples who replied to flyers posted in local community centers offering a $50

incentive to participate; over half of the couples were married while the vast majority were in

heterosexual relationships. All the couples identified themselves as being in long term committed

relationships with the average relationship length of 5 years.

Graham (2008) found that higher levels of excitement were correlated with higher levels

of relationship quality at a statistically significant level and were not impacted by other

demographic characteristics such as gender, age or relationship length. Next, the level of

enjoyment variable was added to the model and it was found that level of excitement was no

longer associated with relationship quality but rather level of enjoyment was the more important

statistical relationship. Hence, the author concluded that the level of enjoyment felt underpinned

the relationship between joint excitement and relationship quality.

The author listed self-reporting bias as a key limitation; participants responded to only

two-thirds of the survey signals sent out, which indicated that the participants were self-selecting

which activities and times they chose to complete the questionnaire thus introducing the

possibility of skewed results. Additionally, I identified demographic characteristics of the sample

as a key limitation in the study; the racial composition of the participants was overwhelmingly

white and household income data was not collected; both these aspects indicate that the sample

was not representative of the American population as a whole.

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Reference

Graham, J. M. (2008). Self-expansion and flow in couples’ momentary experiences: An

experience sampling study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95(3),

679–694. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.95.3.679