Good Business_ Leadership, Flow, and the Making of Meaning - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi [164]
Surgeons who claim that performing operations can be “addictive” are quoted in Csikszentmihalyi (1975, pp. 138–39).
“It’s a Zen feeling…” is from ibid., p. 87.
“So one forgets oneself…” is from Moitessier (1971, p. 52) cited in Macbeth (1988, p. 22). “I understand something…” is from Sato (1988, p. 113).
For the sense of self-transcendence while involved in rock climbing see Robinson (1969); while involved in chess, see Steiner (1974).
The danger of losing self as a result of “transcendent” experience has been extensively written about. One of the earliest treatments of this possibility is by Le Bon (1895 [1960]), whose work influenced that of McDougall (1920) and Freud (1921). Some recent studies dealing with the relationship of self-awareness and behavior are by Diener (1979), Wicklund (1979), and Scheier & Carver (1980). In terms of our model of complexity a deindividuated person who loses his or her self in a group is integrated, but not differentiated. Such a person yields the control of consciousness to the group, and may easily engage in dangerous behavior. To benefit from transcendence one must also have a strongly differentiated, or individuated self. Describing the dialectical relationship between the I, or the active part of the self, and the me, or the reflected self-concept, was the very influential contribution of George Herbert Mead (1934 [1970]).
“Two things happen…” is from Csikszentmihalyi (1975, p. 116).
The essential connection between something like happiness, enjoyment, and even virtue, on the one hand, and intrinsic or autotelic rewards on the other has been generally recognized by thinkers in a variety of cultural traditions. It is essential to the Taoist concept of Yu, or right living (e.g., the basic writings of Chuang Tzu, translated by Watson 1964); to the Aristotelian concept of virtue (MacIntyre 1984); and to the Hindu attitude toward life that infuses the Bhagavad Gita.
The generalizations about people being dissatisfied with work and with leisure time are based on our studies with the Experience Sampling Method (e.g., Csikszentmihalyi & Graef 1979, 1980; Graef, Csikszentmihalyi, & Gianinno, 1983; Csikszentmihalyi & LeFevre 1987, 1989; and LeFevre 1988). The conclusions are based on the momentary responses adult workers wrote down whenever they were paged at random times on their jobs. When workers respond to large-scale surveys, however, they often tend to give much more favorable global responses. A compilation of 15 studies of job satisfaction carried out between 1972 and 1978 concluded that 3 percent of U.S. workers are “very dissatisfied” with their jobs, 9 percent are “somewhat dissatisfied,” 36 percent are “somewhat satisfied,” and 52 percent are “very satisfied” (Argyle 1987, pp. 31–63). A more recent national survey conducted by Robert Half International and reported in the Chicago Tribune (Oct. 18, 1987, sect. 8) arrives at much less rosy results. According to this study, 24 percent of the U.S. work force, or one worker in four, is quite dissatisfied with his or her job. Our methods of measuring satisfaction may be too stringent, whereas the survey methods are likely to give results that are too optimistic. It should be easy to find out whether a group of people are “satisfied” or “dissatisfied” with work. In reality, because satisfaction is such a relative concept, it is very difficult to give an objective answer to this simple question. It is rather like whether one should say “half full” or “half empty” when asked to describe a glass with water halfway up (or down) the container. In a recent book by two outstanding German social scientists, the authors came to diametrically opposed conclusions about German workers’ attitudes toward work, one claiming they loved it, the other that they hated it, even though they were both arguing from the same exhaustive and detailed survey data base (Noelle-Neumann