Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is considered the leading researcher in positive psychology. He has focused his attention on happiness, creativity, and most importantly to this blog – flow. The theory of flow is mostly understood by the public as being in the zone.
I selected Dr. Csikszentmihalyi as a person of interest in this class for two main reasons. First, his impact on motivation, and the interaction between skill and challenge is vital to understanding learning. Second, he mentored many greats like Dr. Keith Sawyer – a Morgan Distinguished Professor in Educational Innovations at UofNC who is an expert on innovation and learning.
Dr. Martin Seligman (a major contributor for creating the counter of the DSM by highlighting the positive aspects of life in Character Strengths and Virtues) connects flow and learning succinctly –
“flow occurs when you deploy your highest strengths and talents to meet the challenges that come your way; it is clear that flow facilitates learning.’ (Seligman et al, 2009).
It is similar to Vgotsky’s zone of proximal development to those that are in education.
I think there are three parts to learning.
- The medium (the form of delivery of the information)
- The message (the information to be learned)
- The learner’s readiness to learn (flow is imperative to this I believe)
To create an analogy –
- Radio waves from a transmitter
- Information
- Antenna for the radio
All three are essential to the transferring of knowledge. If the radio is not set properly, or the antenna is not working, the information will not be received.
For the learner to be in the flow it is to be in the zone. The Twilight Zone! Just kidding. Seriously though. I am very involved in this topic as it related to states of mental states like the ‘theta’ in an electroencephalogram. This is a very important state in trance. This applies to hypnosis trance, musical trance that musicians fall into, and athletes. Definitely worth looking into. Please engage with me if you are even slightly interested in this. It is a big passion of mine and hope that others understand its significance in life.
Here is a link if you are interested, and a video from Dr. Csikszentmihalyi.
https://flowpsychology.com/
Hello Michael – I am so pleased that you introduced Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi; I have a big respect for his work and research.
A little background on Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: he is one of the pioneers of the scientific study of happiness. He was born in Hungary, and his life was affected by the Second World War in many ways which deeply touched his life and later work as well.
Csikszentmihalyi coined the term flow. The central thesis of his most popular book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (1990), is that happiness does not simply happen; it must be created and cultivated by each person, by setting goals that are neither too challenging/demanding nor too simple for one’s abilities. The flow itself occurs when the skill level and the challenge at hand are equal.
Researches at St. Bonaventure University (Walker, 2010) studied “flow” and students rated flow to be more enjoyable when in a team rather than when they work alone. So, if we wish to get more enjoyment out of an experience of flow, try engaging in activities together ☺.
Charles J. Walker (2010) Experiencing flow: Is doing it together better than doing it alone?, The Journal of Positive Psychology, 5:1, 3-11, DOI: 10.1080/17439760903271116
Hi Michael,
Very interesting topic!
I used to be obsessed with and very engaged in the West Coast Swing dancing scene. Our Vancouver group would travel together in large numbers to dance and compete, up and down the west coast to California, through Portland and Seattle, up to local Vancouver events. The hallmark of West Coast Swing dancing is competing and social dancing with new partners every dance and just following (for the follower) what the leads gives you. You do not even know what the song is going to be. Total improv. At weekend competition/workshops event we would start social dancing around 11pm and dance through to 7am . Needless to say…there is not much brain function going on during latenight dancing…and that is the beauty. We just reacted to movement and sound. We were all in search of the ‘magic’ dances and felt lucky to get one or two per night. This is where we partnered perfectly and achieved flow on the dance floor. Perfect song, great challenge, skills used and a partner that matched well for that moment. Flow is incredible when it can be reached… it really did feel like ecstasy! (If you are interested: Video of 2 WCS pros doing some improv in competition https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKUDpiKFV1U)
Christy
That is awesome! Thank you for the perspective and the video. I love the idea of improv dancing. Especially at a competitive level. Super interesting. That sounds like so much and creates innovative learning.
Your blogpost and the comments reminded me of this quote to describe flow as a “way people describe their state of mind when consciousness is harmoniously ordered, and they want to pursue whatever they are doing for its own sake” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990/2008, p. 6).
In my practice, harmoniously ordered in a learning environment brings the concept of social cohesion to the group. To bring another music reference to the mix, Putnam illustrates social cohesion as singing together since “[s]inging together … does not require shared ideology or shared social or ethnic provenance” (p. 411).
Now with that bit of information about me, I am wondering IF you in your readings and studies you found information and knowledge to be synonymous in learning. I noticed you used both in your analogy using radio waves. And does knowledge versus information affect the theta mental state you mentioned?
The reason I ask, I have heard of athletes being in the zone which I told was a theta state in the brain. However, I have always consider the inner state not the outer state providing data. Until you mentioned the hypnotic trance, I never made that connection.
Your studies and work sound fascinating. Looking forward to continuing the discussions in LRNT 524.
References:
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2008). Flow: The Psychology of optimal experience. [Kindle edition]. New York: Harper Collins. (Original work published 1990).
Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Hello Deborah,
Thank you kindly for your comment. It helped me understand your perspective better and created a calm reflection in my mind.
In my opinion, consciousness is a form of an interference pattern. Activity in the prefrontal cortex (an executive function that dominates the construction of consciousness) elevates one’s brain waves from sleep state (delta waves) through relaxed focus (theta/ the subconscious sweet spot and some alpha) to active attention (alpha, beta, and gamma).
I have been playing music for over 25 years and note that when one tries to think about playing music it can often interfere with the preloaded information in the subconscious. All the musicians that I have spoken with follow the same pattern. They are able to play a tune that has been encoded in the long-term memory (subconscious) and think about other concepts entirely in a relaxed way, but if they start to consciously focus on their fingers or vocal patterns they seem to make mistakes. It is as if the subconscious is playing a recording of muscle memory and is best if the recording is not tampered with as it scratches the record.
To go back to your question about learning and knowledge, I think I need to distinguish the two. For me, knowledge is mostly subconscious information that has been retained from experience (procedural) and emotional memories of behaviour (reinforcement and punishment). Active consciousness is mostly self-regulation (inhibition, shifting, working memory [short-term memory]) and is a facilitator of learning as it identifies, categorizes, and organizes internal and external stimulus into goal-directed drives through the ego.
If one tries to learn the same song on guitar by playing it over and over again without a break, it stays in short-term memory and takes longer to memorize. Whereas, if the tune is played back and forth with other tunes the learning is shifted into long-term storage (subconscious) as it needs to recall longer segments.
Hopefully, I am making things clearer more than muddier. Please let me know if you have more questions and reflections. There is a lot to talk about this topic, and can take some time.
A simple answer would be –
Knowledge is mostly in subconscious (lower frequencies like delta/ theta/ and longer wave alpha) with short-term/ working memory in consciousness (higher waves like shortwave alpha, beta, and gamma).
The formal construction of “learning” is completed with the two together but requires the executive function to be active. Delta is a sleep state and one can argue that there is no learning happening in that frame of mind. Some can argue that learning is occurring during dreaming. Theta is mostly experienced twice a day by individuals in that 3-second window if waking up (what was that dream about?), and falling asleep (I am starting to see pictures in my mind).
Finally, in terms of hypnotherapy, “learning” can happen completely at the subconscious level at the mostly theta stage where the hypnotherapist can (with the permission of the client) alter the narrative of one’s mind to something new. For example, either by changing a chapter in the book of one’s life, by allowing the consciousness to be aware of subconscious processes, or by talking with the subconscious directly to change the behavioural pattern that was created to deal with a trauma into either a new behaviour or the removal of a behaviour.
Please let me know if I have answered your question, or you would like to talk more about this. I find this topic very interesting and I wm curious to understand your perspective.
Thank you.