Investigating the "Flow" Experience: Key Conceptual and Operational Issues.
Level 5 - mechanism / opinion, no new human data
Conceptual analysis and narrative review (design analogy)
PubMed 32116954 · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00158
What was done
The author conducted a conceptual analysis and review of papers published within the prior 5 years evaluating how the flow experience is defined and operationalized across 42 empirical studies.
What was found
Across the 42 reviewed studies, flow was operationalized in 24 distinct ways. The author identified three key areas of inconsistency: operationalizing flow as continuous versus discrete, defining it as inherently enjoyable versus not, and treating it as dependent on versus distinct from task antecedents. No other quantitative statistics were reported in the abstract.
Why it matters
This review highlights severe operational heterogeneity in flow research that limits cumulative scientific progress. It proposes standardizing flow as a discrete, highly enjoyable state strictly separated from its antecedent conditions.
Limits
The review relies on a 5-year sample without reported systematic screening criteria or bias assessment. Proposed operational boundaries represent expert theoretical opinion rather than empirical validation.
Cited by
- supports Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi first investigated the concept of psychological flow by studying rock climbers.