Good Business_ Leadership, Flow, and the Making of Meaning - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi [166]
Flow and society. The idea that the kind of flow activities a society made available to its people could reflect something essential about the society itself was first suggested in Csikszentmihalyi (1981a, 1981b). See also Argyle (1987, p. 65).
The issue of cultural relativism is too complex to be given an unbiased evaluation here. An excellent (but not impartial) review of the concept is given by the anthropologist Melford Spiro (1987), who in a recent autobiographical account describes why he changed his mind from an uncritical acceptance of the equal value of cultural practices to a much more qualified recognition of the pathological forms that cultures can occasionally assume. Philosophers and other humanists have often accused social scientists, sometimes with justification, of “debunking” absolute values that are important for the survival of culture (e.g., Arendt 1958, Bloom 1987). The early Italian-Swiss sociologist Vilfredo Pareto (1917, 1919) has been one of the scholars most keenly aware of the dangers of relativity inherent in his discipline.
English workers. The classic story of how the free English workers were transformed into highly regimented industrial laborers is told by the historian E. P. Thompson (1963).
The suspicious Dobuans were studied by the anthropologist Reo Fortune (1932 [1963]). For the tragic plight of the Ik of Uganda see Turnbull (1972).
Yonomamo. This fierce tribe was immortalized by the writings of the anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon (1979). The sad Nigerian tribe was described by Laura Bohannan, under the pseudonym E. S. Bowen (1954). Colin Turnbull (1961) gave a loving description of the pygmies of the Ituri forest. The quote concerning the Shushwap was contained in a 1986 letter from Richard Kool to the author.
The information about the Great Isé Shrine was provided in a personal communication by Mark Csikszentmihalyi.
For the percentages of happy people in different nations, see George Gallup (1976). The study that showed U.S. respondents to be about as happy as Cubans and Egyptians was conducted by Easterlin (1974). For a general discussion of happiness and cross-cultural differences, see Argyle (1987, pp. 102–11).
Affluence and happiness. Both Argyle (1987) and Veenhoven (1984) agree, on the basis of their evaluation of practically every study in the field conducted so far, that there is conclusive evidence for a positive but very modest correlation between material well-being and happiness or satisfaction with life.
The time budgets for U.S. workers are based on our ESM studies (e.g., Csikszentmihalyi & Graef 1980; Graef, Csikszentmihalyi, & Gianinno 1983; Csikszentmihalyi & LeFevre 1987, 1989). These estimates are very similar to those obtained with much more extensive surveys (e.g., Robinson 1977).
Stimulus overinclusion in schizophrenia. The concept of anhedonia was originally developed by the psychiatrist Roy Grinker. Overinclusion and the symptomatology of attentional disorders have been studied by, among others, Harrow, Grinker, Holzman, & Kayton (1977) and Harrow, Tucker, Hanover, & Shield (1972). The quotations are from McGhie & Chapman (1961, pp. 109, 114). I have argued the continuity between lack of flow experiences due to severe psychopathologies and milder attentional disorders often caused by social deprivation in Csikszentmihalyi (1978, 1982a).
Among the studies of the Eskimo that are worth reading are those of Carpenter (1970, 1973). The destruction of Caribbean cultures is described by Mintz (1985). The concept of anomie was originally developed by Emile Durkheim in his work Suicide (1897 [1951]). The best introduction to the concept of alienation is in the early manuscripts of Karl Marx, especially his Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 (see Tucker 1972). The sociologist Richard Mitchell (1983, 1988) has argued that anomie and alienation are the societal counterparts of anxiety and boredom, respectively, and that they occur when people cannot find flow because the conditions of everyday life are either too chaotic or too predictable.
The neurophysiological