ABSTRACT
Professor Mike Csikszentmihalyi at Claremont Graduate University has shown through extensive research that when people are engaged in challenging but controllable tasks that are intrinsically motivating they experience a unique psychological state, referred to as Flow (Csikszentmihalyi and Csikszentmihalyi, 1988; Csikszentmihalyi, 1990, 1997; Nakamura and Csikszentmihalyi, 2002). In this chapter, before discussing the concept of flow in detail, Ryan and Deci's (2000) intrinsic motivation theory will be addressed. Then Seligman's (2002) theory on the link between the use of character strengths and flow will be considered, since activities involving the use of such strengths are typically intrinsically motivated. Apter's (2001) reversal theory will also be outlined, since challenging tasks which lead to flow experiences are sometimes
associated with reversals between states of anxiety and excitement, or goaldirected means-end thinking and activity-focused thinking.
