Flow and the Foundations of Positive Psychology: The Collected Works of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

The second volume in the collected works of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi covers about thirty years of Csikszentmihalyis work on three main and interconnected areas of study attention, flow and positive psychology. Describing attention as psychic energy and in the footsteps of William James, Csikszentmihalyi explores the allocation of attention, the when and where and the amount of attention humans pay to tasks and the role of attention in creating experiences, or ordered patterns of information. Taking into account information processing theories and attempts at quantifying peoples investment, the chapters deal with such topics as time budgets and the development and use of the Experience Sampling Method of collecting data on attention in everyday life. Following the chapters on attention and reflecting Csikszentmihalyis branching out into sociology and anthropology, there are chapters on the topic of adult play and leisure and connected to that, on flow, a concept formulated and developed by Csikszentmihalyi.