GEHP111 – Happiness and

Wellbeing
CLASS 11 & 12 – ENGAGEMENT AND FLOW
What’s going on here?
 Participators v. Spectators

 Participators are engaged. Engagement is about how meaningfully involved people get in life.
 Involvement means they partake in activities, like sports, hobbies, or the arts. They involve
themselves in opportunities to grow, learn, struggle and fail with pleasure.
 These participators dedicate a lot of time to their interests and aim to improve, or master a skill, talent,
or aspect of themselves.
 They get up early, carve out time away from friends or family to do these things, they might also
spend money on equipment, lessons, and training. They are committed to participating and delving
into what life has to offer.
 In contrast, spectators prefer an easy life and not very involved in things that lead to growth.
 Spectators prefer to watch others do great things but never consider doing these things themselves.
They partake in a pleasant life, but not necessarily an engaging one.
 People who are engaged with life tend to be:

 Healthier
 More socially engaged
 More knowledgeable (you know more people and are exposed to ideas, places, events…)
 Less depressed
 Find life more meaningful and feel they have a purpose (there’s a reason to get up in the
morning versus only fulfilling duty)
 Have avenues through which they can achieve and accomplish
Being engaged, although it might seem like a huge demand on time,
gives us more energy to do the things we need to do like studying,
working or parenting.
It rejuvenates us and is paradoxically the thing you need to do when
you feel like it the least.
Being engaged allows us to use our time effectively rather than
simply passing time
Flow: Engagement’s reward

Controlling our attention while experiencing voluntary,

challenging activity
 Flow: Engagement’s reward

 Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s studies led him to conclude that happiness is an

internal state of being, not an external one.
 Happiness is not a rigid, unchanging state, Csikszentmihalyi has argued. On
the contrary, the manifestation of happiness takes a committed effort.
 Csikszentmihalyi interviewed athletes, musicians, and artists because he
wanted to know when they experienced optimal performance levels. He was
also interested in finding out how they felt during these experiences.
 Flow: Engagement’s reward

 Csikszentmihalyi developed the term “flow state” because many of the people he
interviewed described their optimal states of performance as instances when their work
simply flowed out of them without much effort.
 He aimed to discover what piques creativity, especially in the workplace, and how
creativity can lead to productivity. He determined that flow is not only essential to a
productive employee, but it is imperative for a contented one as well.
 In Csikszentmihalyi’s words, flow is “a state in which people are so involved in an activity
that nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable that people will continue
to do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it” (1990).
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi of Flow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_u-Eh3h7Mo
Nine Factors are Involved in Flow (Jackson & Csikszentmihalyi,
1999)

Challenge Control Feedback

Loss of Self-
Concentration Action
Consciousness

Time Intrinsically
Goals
Transformation Rewarding
1. Activities which induce flow involve effort and skill and include challenge slightly beyond what we can
normally do. Due to the gap, we are forced to grow. If there is not enough challenge, we are bored, if
there is too much we become anxious or give up as we feel the gap is too difficult to bridge.
2. At the same time, we have to pay attention to meet the demands of the challenge. Thus, controlling
where our thoughts go and at what intensity is a skill in itself.
3. Action must also be involved in flow. This is why you will never experience flow from watching
television. Action need not always be physical, but it can be mental too. Essentially, it is when you are
manipulating the environment, activity, or your own experience instead of it acting on you.
4. During flow, time seems to quicken with the perception of the activity being over sooner than we
expected, or take longer than expected (Jackson, 2000).
5. Flow also depends on goals. We need to have an idea of what we are there to accomplish. We need a
target whether that is in time, position, speed, technique, etc.
5. Flow further depends on the activity being done because we like it (Csikszentmihalyi,
1975/2000). When we engage in activity for this reason, flow and competence emerge (Waterman,
2005). You do it for your own love of the activity (intrinsically rewarding).
6. Feedback: we need to concentrate and focus so that we can spot and respond to feedback from
the activity we are engaging in.
7. Concentration: Flow involves a seamless interaction between action and awareness. If we
think too much about ourselves, we get in the way of flow. We should be focusing on doing
instead and leave the concerns we have for ourselves behind, and definitely not over analyze!
8. And finally, a lack of self-consciousness is the biggest hallmark of flow. If you are thinking of
yourself self-consciously, i.e. do I look silly, is my shirt tag sticking out, what do others think of
me, you will not be able to concentrate. Over-thinking gets in the way of flow.
Benefits of Flow

 People who experience flow even for 15 minutes at a time report being
much happier with life. There’s little very little else in life that allows us
to feel this way.
 You can find out more here:
https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/mihaly-csikszentmihalyi-father-o
f-flow/
Homework

PPI: Think about where you could achieve flow on a

weekly basis. What did you once do that brought you joy
that you could do again? Or is there a new activity that
you could devote time to weekly so that you can
experience flow and move towards a greater version of
yourself?
What really
matters?
Time Use
Active v. Passive Leisure

 Active Leisure: Active leisure activities involve using physical or mental

energy, often overlap with recreational activities, and usually happen outside
your home and with other people (like volunteering, hobbies, and exercise).
 Passive Leisure: Passive leisure activities involve using little or no physical
or mental energy and are usually done alone…e.g. TV, social media, sleeping
in, eating, hanging around…things we waste our time doing and that bring
little in terms of reward. We can think of these as the equivalent of ‘empty
calories’ - they are indeed food, but not very nourishing and after we eat
them, we are still hungry.
Active Leisure is divided into 3 categories…

 Social Leisure: The primary focus of social leisure is socializing with family
and friends (e.g. visiting an exhibition or attending a concert with family and
friends, volunteering)
 Cognitive Leisure: With cognitive leisure, the focus is on mentally
stimulating activities (e.g. learning chess, learning a new language, journaling)
 Physical leisure: Physical leisure activities involve exercise and sport (gym,
soccer, yoga, couch-to-5k app)
Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQqkRcdeEY8
Reflection

 Do we as a society, spend more time on ‘active leisure’ (e.g., sports) or

passive leisure (e.g., watching TV)?
 What are the physical, emotional, and social results? How could we
use our time better?
 What do you do outside work, school and/or parenting? Do you use
your free time well?
 How Successful People Spend their Weekends

 https://www.forbes.com/sites/travisbradberry/2015/03/24/how-s
uccessful-people-spend-their-weekends/?sh=296c0a9019c0
 What lessons can you learn from the article about how you can
best use your time?
Mid-term exam

 Thursday, March 9th

 25% total grade
 25 MCQ/true or false questions
 Online, in class
 Requires Respondus Lockdown Browser
Exam Topics

 What is positive psychology? (review articles from class 2)

 Collectivist v. individual societies (attitudes to happiness)
 PERMA model (5 paths and what they involve)
 Broaden and Build Model (what it is)
 Flow (what it is)
 Character strengths (examples)
 Workbook: Part I

Part 1 of the workbook is due for submission on Friday 3rd March through
blackboard

The different workbook sheets from weeks 1-8 should be collected in a single
document and uploaded in ‘Course Documents’

This is worth 14% of your total grade