Is it Possible to Experience Flow in Prosocial Activities? An Argentinean Study

BELÉN MESURADO; MARÍA CRISTINA RICHAUD

Vanocuver

Conferencia; 14th SRA (Society for Research on Adolescence) 2012 Biennial Meeting.; 2012

Society for Research on Adolescence

Csikszentmihalyi (1999) defines optimal experience or flow as the mental state which results from total engagement with an activity that requires high concentration. It is a mental state in which people are so involved in a given task that they do not care about anything else. This experience may be so enjoyable that people like doing it even through it requires lots of effort (Cuadra & Florenzano, 2003). Although the concept of flow has been applied to study the subjective experience of work, sports, leisure, daily life and study (Salanova, Martínez, Cifre, & Schaufeli, 2005; Jackson & Eklund, 2002; Delle-Fave & Massimini, 2003; Rathunde & Csikszentmihalyi, 2005), few studies have examined the subjective quality of prosocial activities (behaviors intended to benefit others) in childhood and adolescence. The purpose of this chapter is to examine a) If it is possible to experience flow in prosocial activities, b) what specific contexts (e.g. into family, into school, etc.) of prosocial behavior were associated with flow experience, and finally c) to examine possible correlations between the nine flow dimensions and different types of prosocial behavior. Method Participants We invited 279 adolescents to participate in the study. Because 84 adolescents were excluded for not reporting flow experience in prosocial activity, the final sample included 195 adolescents (109 male and 86 females), aged 14 to 17 (M= 15.02, SD= 1.08) from Buenos Aires-Argentina. Measures 1) A phrase that evoked a subjective flow experience based on Csikszentmihalyi’s phrase (1982) was presented to participants who had to say if they had felt this experience when they were helping others. The phrase used in this study was: Has the following ever happened to you while you were doing any activity to help other people? I do not think about anything else than what I am doing. I am completely absorbed by what I do. I feel good, I do have any pain and it is like nobody is listening. It is like I am distant from everyone. I forget about my problems. I do not realize that I am concentrating. I think that if someone was to call me, or if the doorbell or the telephone were to ring, I wouldn’t hear them. Once I finish doing this activity I “reconnect” with the world. If the participants had never had a similar experience, the evaluation is finished, but if the participants reported such an experience, they were asked to indicate the specific prosocial activity they were doing. 2) Participants completed the Flow State Scale developed by Jackson and Marsh (1996) that assesses the nine dimension of optimal experience. The original questionnaire was modified slightly so that the answers might seek to measure flow experience in undertaking prosocial activities. Each dimension was measured using four (4) items on a 5-point Likert scale, 5 (totally agree) to 1 (totally disagree). (1) Challenge-skill balance. The person perceives a balance between the challenges of a situation and their skills, with both operating at a personally high level. (Cronbach’s alpha coefficients = .70) (2) Sense of control. A sense of exercising control is experienced, without the person actively trying to exert control. (Cronbach’s alpha coefficients = .70) (3) Concentration on the task at hand. Total concentration on the task at hand occurs when in flow. (Cronbach’s alpha coefficients = .71) (4) Unambiguous feedback. Immediate and clear feedback is received, usually from the activity itself, allowing the person to know that he or she is succeeding in the set goal. (Cronbach’s alpha coefficients = .65) (5) Loss of self-consciousness. Concern for the self disappears during flow as the person becomes one with the activity. (Cronbach´s alpha coefficients = .67) (6) Autothelic experience. An autotelic experience is an intrinsically rewarding experience. (Cronbach´s alpha coefficients = .68) (7) Clear goals. Goals in the activity are clearly defined (either set in advance or developed out of involvement in the activity), giving the person in flow a strong sense of what he or she is going to do. (Cronbach´s alpha coefficients = .68) (8) Transformation of time. Sense of time is altered depending on their interests: in some cases, there is a reduced sense of time and, in others, an increased sense of time. (Cronbach´s alpha coefficients = .60) (9) Action-awareness merging. This characteristic focuses on performing tasks automatically. (Cronbach´s alpha coefficients = .69) Participants had to complete this scale according to the specific prosocial activity mentioned beforehand. 3). Prosocial Tendency Measure- R by Carlo and Randall (2002) was completed to assess how likely they are to engage in prosocial behaviors across a variety of situations (Carlo et al., 2003). The 20-item version of the PTM was composed of 6 subscales: (1) Altruistic: voluntary helping motivated primarily by concern for the need and welfare of others (2) Compliant: helping others in response to request (3) Emotional: helping others under emotionally evocative circumstances (4) Public: conducted, at least in part, by a desire to gain the approval and respect of others and enhance one´s self-worth (5) Anonymous: performed without knowledge of whom is helped (6) Dire: helping in crisis or emergency circumstances. Participants were asked to rate the extent to which statements described them on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (does not describe me at all) to 5 (describes me greatly). Cronbach´s alpha coefficients are the following: public = .66, anonymous =.73, dire = .73, emotional = .89, compliant = .78, and altruism = .70. Results Children recognized that experienced flow in prosocial activities 72% of the entire sample. This percentage coincides with other research undertaken in Argentina, Italy and Portugal analyzing flow experience in daily activities (Bassi, Freire, & Mesurado, 2012). Most adolescents reported optimal experience in prosocial activities when they were doing community activities (e.g. helping with a charity, volounteering with a soup kitchen giving food to the needy, I am a volunteer firefighter, boy scout, I help at a community centre) then when were helping their parents or sibling in a family context (e.g. I look after my sibling, I often help my mother with household chores, I wash the dishes, I wash the car). School contexts had the lowest reported proportion of prosocial activities in the studied sample (e.g. I help my classmate with their homework) (see, Figure 1). With respect to the correlations between the nine flow dimensions and different types of prosocial behavior, we found an association among the nine dimensions of flow and Altruism. Recientes research shows that Altruism appears to be the sole intrinsically motivated prosocial behaviour (Minzi, Mesurado, & Kohan, 2011) and as flow experiences tend to occur while doing intrinsically motivating activities this can explain the relationship between altruistic behaviour and flow. Two dimensions of flow appear to be associated with the different types of prosocial conduct, clear direct feedback and concentration on the task. This would indicate that independent of a person’s intentions in helping others, they can guide their behaviour and come to know how effective this help is to others (see Table 1). In summary, although optimal experience is not necessarily virtuous in that flow presents an amoral character (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990; Nakamura & Csikszentmihalyi, 2009), this results show that it is possible to experience flow during prosocial activities. Future research will be needed to investigate con mayor profundidad the correlates of each form of prosocial behavior with flow experience in different contexts.