WRITERS ON EDUCATION

Nathan Bupp,
Free Inquiry, Vol 26, no. 6
Humanism and the Science of Happiness

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi garnered wide attention with his bestselling 1990 book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, in which he argued that the most rewarding happiness lies in the skillful performance of meaningful work that fully occupies one’s attention. He has emerged as one of the leading figures in the growing positive-psychology movement. Free Inquiry’s Associate Editor Nathan Bupp questioned Csikszentmihalyi about positive psychology and his own insights.

Free Inquiry: In your opinion, what are some of the most valuable insights to emerge out of the “science-of-happiness” field?

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Personally, I have been most impressed by the effects of the “gratitude intervention” that Martin Seligman has devised, which apparently has a lasting effect in raising people’s happiness. Basically, volunteers are assigned randomly to various “interventions,” and their happiness is assessed before and after. This method is almost identical to the double-blind, random-assignment experiments used by pharmaceutical companies to assess whether a new drug is effective. In the gratitude intervention, people are asked to think about a person who was kind or helpful to them but has never been thanked for it. Then the volunteer is supposed to write a one-page letter of thanks, make an appointment with the target person, and read the letter in his or her presence. The volunteers who are randomly assigned to do this task show significant increases in happiness half a year after completing it. Other interventions based on positive psychology experiments also show impressive results, but this appears to be the most effective.

FI: How can we educate our emotions? What is your view on “emotional intelligence?” Is it a valuable construct?
Csikszentmihalyi: I am not sure that educating the emotions alone should be a main goal. From Castiglione’s courtier to Dale Carnegie, there have been many good prescriptions for how to achieve emotional education, but it seems to me one needs to ask a more fundamental question: how do we develop character?
FI: Can there be a genuine science of happiness that is entirely distinct from pharmaceutical intervention?

Csikszentmihalyi: I certainly hope so. Drugs can do neat things, but I doubt any state of consciousness worthy of the label “happiness” can be induced by them-except in temporary bursts that do not have long-lasting effects. Think Soma or opium. Drugs can modify behavior and get us to strive for goals, but they cannot indicate what behaviors and goals are more likely to lead to happiness. Whether the nonpharmaceutical study of behaviors and goals that may lead to happiness will ever become a science is, of course, still uncertain, but it’s worth pursuing, isn’t it?

FI: What-and who-were some of the philosophical precursors to your concept of “flow?”
Csikszentmihalyi: I was influenced by some graduate courses on Husserl and Heidegger that made me take seriously the phenomenological approach, which I have tried to make more systematic in my own research. Also, Abraham Maslow’s concept of “peak experience” was influential, and it resonated with my experience in playing chess and in rock climbing. After I started writing about flow, I came across a huge amount of material from Hindu and Chinese sources that indicated that similar ideas have a long history in other cultures as well.

FI: In your book, The Evolving Self, you talk about the need to see through the “Veils of Maya,” those mental blinders that the self, culture, and our genes impose on us. Secular humanists have talked a lot about the need for the cultivation of critical thinking in the public at large. Is there an inherent need in humans to harbor a certain amount of “positive illusions?” What does the science of happiness have to say about this?
Csikszentmihalyi: Yes, the importance of “positive illusions” as an anchor for morale has been recognized for a long time, by observers ranging from Karl Marx to Vilfredo Pareto to Sigmund Freud. Of course, what is real and what is illusory is not always clear. Current research shows that people who take a positive view of things (and thus might be seen to suffer from illusions) have a better chance of changing their external circumstances, which is to say, their reality.

FI: Are the conclusions flowing from the “science-of-happiness” research humanistic?
Csikszentmihalyi: I do think so. I know that some colleagues who identify themselves as “humanistic psychologists” would say no, as an understandable reaction to the reductionistic, simple-minded application of the scientific method to psychology, especially by workers in the generation from 1950 to 1980. But in my opinion, banning science from human affairs is like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

FI: What role or roles can classical conceptions of the good life-such as those of Epicurus, Aristotle, and Spinoza-play in a modern, scientifically advanced world?
Csikszentmihalyi: I am firmly on the side of science, but not to the extent of assuming that because we live in a modern (or postmodern) world we are actually in every respect wiser, or even more thoughtful, than people who lived a few millennia ago. I assume that when we can’t learn anything new from Aristotle et al., we will stop reading them. At this point, that does not seem likely.

FI: Has science killed the “soul”-metaphorically speaking?
Csikszentmihalyi: Many people who speak of the “soul” do so in a somewhat narcissistic, romantic way-they mean by it something unique to them, mysterious, perhaps God-given. I like to think of it as something we create by investing our psychic energy in goals that benefit entities outside ourselves. The Romans’ term for this was magnanimus, the root of our magnanimous, from the Latin magna (great) and anima (soul); the Hindus strung the same concepts together in their title mahatma, which is given to people like Gandhi. In this sense, science is not inherently inimical to the soul-on the contrary.

FI: In a naturalistic world-devoid of religion-can a creative blend of the humanities and the sciences lead to an ultimately more fulfilling and absorbing life?
Csikszentmihalyi: It had better be possible, or things will not go too well for our species. Such a “blend” will require enormous creativity-but I do think that, as time goes on, its inevitability will become increasingly obvious.

FI: We have often heard about philosophical wisdom. Can there be a genuine science of wisdom, a scientific wisdom?
Csikszentmihalyi: German psychologist Paul Baltes and the American psychologist Robert Sternberg have started systematic studies of happiness-the approach is still in its infancy, but again, I’d say it’s worth pursuing.

FI: Americans seem to be caught up in a primarily materialistic conception of happiness-the “hedonic treadmill,” as it is sometimes called. Is this written in our genes?
Csikszentmihalyi: I think there is a strong genetic component in this need for possessions. After all, our ancestors living in conditions of scarcity must have been selected for the ability to secure material resources-tools, food, domestic animals, and the like. It’s hard to escape from the results of hundreds of generations of natural selection. The question is whether now that we are becoming aware of the fact that we are the main selective force on the planet, will we be able to apply brakes to this greed for ever more stuff?

FI: Is the situation similar in Europe?
Csikszentmihalyi: I think Europe has been to some extent sobered up by how close the West came to annihilation during World War II, and so there is some hope for a new global contract to emerge from there. But of course, greed has been at home in Europe for a long time-just as it has been in China and everywhere else.

FI: In The Evolving Self, you say early on that “at this point in history it should be possible for an individual to build a self that is a conscious, personal creation-not just an outcome of biological drives.” What tools do we have at our disposal to help make this so?
Csikszentmihalyi: We have more freedom, more free time, more knowledge, and fewer cultural pressures than at virtually any other time in the past-at least we have the potential for these. While most of these precious resources are ignored or being wasted, the potential for taking control of one’s consciousness seems much greater than it has ever been. Perhaps we need a real scare to make us take our task seriously-global warming? Avian flu? George W. Bush?

FI: Is frustration and a vague sense of discontent the price we pay for being human? In other words, are humans victims of their own biological design?
Csikszentmihalyi: I do think that the price we pay for our large brain, which frees us from being completely programmed by genetic instructions, is that, too often, we act in ways that have not passed the muster of natural selection. Instead of adding value to our lives, these acts can detract from it. Of course, the independence of our brains from past instructions has a potentially enormous upside too-the freedom to create completely new ways of being. A dangerous tool, this big brain, but it can be lots of fun.

FI: You have said that you “have a na•ve trust in the universe–that at some level it all makes sense, and we can get glimpses of that sense if we try.” Can you explain further?
Csikszentmihalyi: Well, I suppose it’s a variation on Pascal’s wager-the idea that since we don’t know whether there is some meaning in existence or not, we are better off believing in it than not believing. After all, realizing that, despite its size, my brain allows me only a pitifully minuscule glimpse of reality makes me humble about what I don’t know. Perhaps there is a rhyme to the music of the spheres after all. And sometimes, one definitely gets that impression-perhaps only a small intimation, but enough to keep hope alive.

FI: Philosophers have often drawn distinctions between a life of contemplation and the life of action. From the standpoint of the science of happiness, can one be seen to be more fulfilling than the other, or is it the better part of wisdom to attempt to forge a synthesis of both?
Csikszentmihalyi: I was very impressed by Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition and her analysis of the vita contemplativa versus the vita activa-so much so that I can say nothing on the topic that is original. In my work, I have suggested that the best solution is a synthesis-but saying that is the easy way out, isn’t it?

2. Thirty years of analyzing responses from thousands of people have led research psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi to the theory of “flow” – a state of consciousness in which concentration on activity is so intense that complete absorption is achieved.

In the following interview with FI Editor Timothy J. Madigan, he talks about his studies of people who have found happiness in everyday experiences and the guidelines he has formulated to help others do the same.

Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced “Chick-sent-me-high-ee ” – a Hungarian name that means “of St. Michael of Csik,” a Transylvanian province) has written or coauthored many books on finding meaning in daily existence, including Beyond Boredom and Anxiety, The Evolving Self, Creativity, and the seminal Flow: The Psychology of Everyday Experience (1991) and Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life (1997). He is Professor of Education and Psychology at the University of Chicago and a member of the National Academy of Education and the National Academy of Leisure Sciences.
FREE INQUIRY: Could you define what you mean by “flow”?
CSIKSZENTMIHALYI: I became interested in this over 30 years ago when I was doing a study of creativity by observing artists at work. I was very impressed at how they could get lost in what they were doing without concern for anything else except the activity. I tried to find out, first of all, why artists’ work was so rewarding. Then I became interested in corresponding experiences in other activities. And so I started looking at people who seem to be doing things for the sheer sake of the experience. They were rock climbers, dancers, chess players, musicians, etc. All of them used, more or less, the same words to describe how it felt to perform their activity that was so satisfying.
That became the theory of flow. It essentially says that people who seem to feel most positive about their lives possess a set of common characteristics, such as knowing clearly what they have to do, getting feedback on what they are doing, and being able to match their abilities with the opportunities for action so that skills and challenges are in balance. When those characteristics are present, people begin to concentrate very highly. As a result they forget the problems of everyday life, and they seem to step into a kind of alternative reality. That consolidation of characteristics is what I call the “flow experience.”
FI: What connection do you see between flow and happiness? Are they one and the same, or is there a difference?
CSIKSZENTMIHALYI: What people ordinarily call happiness is very similar to flow. But the interesting thing is that when people are in these flow conditions they are not necessarily happy because their attention is too taken up by what has to be done. They cannot reflect on how they feel. It’s really after the experience, in looking back, that they say that it was the happiest moment of their lives. If you are climbing a rock or composing or playing a musical piece you cannot think if you are happy, you are just so involved in what you are doing that to be happy would be a distraction that would make you fail at what you’re doing.
FI: So it’s focusing on the moment?
CSIKSZENTMIHALYI: Definitely. When you reconstruct that experience in memory you attribute happiness to it, which is I think how people actually operate.
FI: How do you study flow scientifically?
CSIKSZENTMIHALYI: Initially, I was simply using interviews. Then we developed questionnaires. The system that we are using now relies on a much more sophisticated methodology where we ask people to carry for a week a booklet and a watch that is programmed to go off every two hours, between 7 and 11 at night usually. When the watch starts beeping you take out the booklet and write down what you’re doing. Over time we found this to be a very reliable and valid snapshot of the quality of a person’s life at that moment. And when you aggregate these over a week’s period you get a fairly accurate snapshot of a person’s life as a whole.
FI: Have you also done cross-cultural studies of flow?
CSIKSZENTMIHALYI: We have obtained data from colleagues who have been working in different cultures. One of the surprises is how similarly people in Japan or India or Korea describe their optimal experiences.
FI: It is encouraging that people of different traditions can nonetheless express this attitude in their own terms. It reminded me very much of Aristotle’s concept of eudaimonia.
CSIKSZENTMIHALYI: I was vaguely aware that there may be a connection, but I didn’t really think about it or follow it up until afterwards. I think the neat thing is that somehow every generation or two you have to rediscover what people knew in the past or restate it in some new way that is more consonant with a new general understanding. The substance may be very similar; it’s just the way you express it. The structural framework changes.
FI: What you’ve added is the scientific data. If Aristotle had had computers who knows what he might have done.
What connection do you see between flow and organized religion?
CSIKSZENTMIHALYI: It’s kind of a love-hate relationship in some ways, because I think that religions have preserved some of the important understandings about what life has to be like to make sense. On the other hand, they have then put that understanding into a rigid framework that often militates against being able to live that way. I am concerned when religious people are convinced they possess the ultimate truth. Religions represent great steps forward in getting a sense of what the universe may be like and what our place in it is. But it is only a step. We have to honor what religion has accomplished but I think we need to take further steps because that’s certainly not the end point.
FI: You point out that there are two extremes that could lead to a loss of flow. One occurs when you join an organization such as a fundamentalist religion or a mass movement of some sort that really is not concerned with the individual. On the other hand there is the extreme of complete individuality and solitude. You point out that there is actually a disintegration of self when that occurs. Do you see the flow notion working best in institutions that still allow for individual growth and exploration?
CSIKSZENTMIHALYI: Definitely. The social context has to exist. You can have flow while reading in solitude or doing something else alone, but essentially, in the long run, there has to be a context in which you can confirm your existence, together with others. One of the challenges we have is to discover new forms of sociability that will allow that, because it is kind of scary, when you look not only in the United States but even more in some of the other advanced countries like Scandinavia, how fragmented people are getting, how many people live alone and have really no connection with anyone.
FI: I see a great deal of relevance to this for the humanist movement. On the one hand most people, myself included, who become humanists tend to have broken away from some religious tradition, usually because they found that there was no room for growth or that their questions were not being taken seriously. On the other hand, as you point out in Flow, for people in your studies who live by themselves and do not attend church, Sunday mornings are the lowest part of the week.
CSIKSZENTMIHALYI: What all of the studies slowly revealed was that it’s really quite difficult for individuals to be able to keep their minds in any sort of orderly state unless they have a goal they’re pursuing and that they know how to reach, or that they have other human beings around them with whom they interact. Or they have some artifact like a book or a computer they can work on. But that’s really a subset of having a goal. If you don’t feel that you have a goal and you don’t have anyone to relate to, then typically people’s minds begin either to turn to the negative problems that everybody has that are upsetting or they begin to lose control over the flow of thought and it becomes chaotic. We are generally unable to control the stream of consciousness. A Chinese curse says, may all your goals be fulfilled. It is a very good insight because I think that, if you don’t have a goal to organize your attention, then randomness starts to prevail unless one has self-discipline. Some people have discipline. They can meditate, they can do something in their head like adding up numbers, writing poetry, or playing with ideas, but that’s rare. Most people really require an external structure to keep their minds ship-shape.
FI: I like your comment that, while that it’s true that swamies can be in a state of flow, so can plumbers.
CSIKSZENTMIHALYI: I really do think so. We have so many examples of people in what seems to be boring or repetitive jobs who really enjoy them.
FI: In that regard, flow is not an elitist concept. You don’t have to join some esoteric religion or movement in order to learn how to achieve it.
CSIKSZENTMIHALYI: That’s exactly right. Last winter, Good Morning America wanted to do an episode on flow, so the producer asked me to put her in touch with some of the great flow people that I know. I said no. I thought they should find them themselves. She asked how to go about it. I said, go out in the street and start talking to people, and I guarantee that in two hours you’ll have some really interesting examples.
The show turned out to be great. One guest had been slicing salmon in a delicatessen for the past 20 years. He talked about his job like a poet. He talked about how each fish was different and how he got a feeling for its anatomy by working on a marble cutting slab.
Another was a pediatrician who loved to see children every day. There was a woman who enjoyed doing laundry. She serviced a family of eight people, and she just loved to fold the laundry, smell it, and touch it.
FI: Can you give our readers a few tips on how they may try to find flow in their own lives?
CSIKSZENTMIHALYI: I have two suggestions. One would be to think back on all the things that you wanted to do when you were 10 or 15 or 17 but that you put aside and forgot about. Create time for them now. Cut out all the stuff that you don’t really need to do, that is neither absolutely necessary nor enjoyable.
The other suggestion would be to keep track of what you’re doing for a week or so, almost like doing your own experience sampling method. Instead of using watches and beepers, just keep track in a diary of what you really enjoy doing and what you wished you were doing. After a week or two begin to review what you’ve written. See how you could inject a little bit more of what you would really like to do. Then observe how you feel when you do these things, and, if they really work, do more of them until you feel comfortable.
By being reflective and in touch with your feelings you can begin to choose more wisely what the quality of your life should be.
FI: At the end of Flow you describe how you sometimes teach classes for tired businessmen who feel burned out. You discuss Dante with them. What can they learn from Dante?
CSIKSZENTMIHALYI: Dante is probably the first person, at least in the West, who described what we now call a mid-life crisis. The first verses of The Divine Comedy are on being in the middle of his life and having lost his way in a dark forest. He reviews the internal dangers of that forest – lust and greed for money and power. These have always seduced people into thinking that they have to do things that they don’t really like to and that are not really good for them or for anybody else in the long run. Of course, there is the need for sex. We have been selected to want to procreate soon and quickly. But what’s the meaning of this program when you live two to three times longer than our early ancestors and each individual’s having offspring is no longer a necessity for the race? The same is true of greed. If you are in a subsistence existence you want to get as many calories and as much of scarce resources as possible. But after awhile, that activity again, becomes self-defeating.
So in many ways those three beasts that Dante confronted in the dark forest are really the beasts that we all carry inside ourselves. They had a very good reason for being there at one point and they’re still somewhat useful. But we can’t let them dictate where we are going and what we are doing. That is something that executives could relate to, because many of them have been working very hard towards goals that in mid-life don’t seem as important or as meaningful.
FI: You also mention that, although Dante is considered almost the epitome of orthodox Catholic thinking, he actually was quite unorthodox and had a very eclectic approach. Like you’re doing now, he was making connections. He drew connections with the pagan world of Virgil, and the Islamic as well as the Christian world.
CSIKSZENTMIHALYI: It’s so important to realize that we all have parts of the puzzle and no one has the solution. We have to put these pieces together, whether they come from China or Syria or India or whatever. Ninety-nine percent of the pieces are not even on the table yet, you know. They will be coming next generation or the generation after that. You have to stay humble, but you have to be optimistic.

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