3rd Global Conference
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Friday 9th February - Sunday 11th February
2007
Sydney, Australia
Conference Programme, Abstracts and Papers
Session 4: Creativity and ‘Flow’
Chair: Susan Renn
Encouraging Creativity: Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow and Motivation
Elizabeth
McIntyre
University of Canberra, Australia
As part of a larger study of creativity and contemporary Australian fiction writers, this paper explores theories of motivation and that often elusive state of ‘flow’, which Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi argues is a form of optimal experience where a sense of clarity and enjoyment derive from a balance of skill and challenge. In-depth interviews with 35 Australian writers have revealed interesting commonalities in their experience of the highs and lows of the writing life. Many of these writers report a childhood development of the deep intrinsic motivation needed to reach a state of ‘flow’ where self consciousness disappears and action and awareness merge. Whether from direct or indirect encouragement by a parent or teacher, deep engagement with written material or the experience of a single significant event in their youth, many writers have developed an autotelic motivation or love for the writing process that often sustains them through hard work and writer’s block. Placing emphasis on this early encouragement and potential for flow, this paper examines what drives a person to seek out, sustain and succeed at creative activity.
Rethinking Creative Practice in the Light of Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi’s
Systems Model of Creativity
Phillip
McIntyre
University of Newcastle, Newcastle, Australia
Mihaly Cziksentmihalyi’s work on the notion of ‘flow’ has been particularly influential in explaining the experience of creativity but this paper argues that his conception of the systems model of creativity may prove to be equally beneficial in terms of analyzing and describing creative practice. Csikszentmihalyi argues that creativity occurs as a result of the three way interaction of a person with a domain of knowledge and a field that makes decision about that domain of knowledge. The systems model, and the increasing move towards the use of confluence models in creativity research in general, highlights the necessity to look beyond the individual in accounting for creativity. This shift in research thinking then entails a necessary shift in approaches to the techniques we can utilise to enhance the practice of creativity. Csikszentmihalyi asserts that we need to abandon our Ptolemaic approach to creativity for a more Copernican one. If he is correct the use of personal skills and the acquisition of domain knowledge will need to be supplemented with a complex understanding of the way in which fields work and make decisions.
Humour, Anxiety and Csikszentmihalyi’s Concept
of Flow
Michael
Meany
School of Design, Communication and IT,
Faculty of Science and IT,
The University of Newcastle,
Callaghan. NSW, Australia
Csikszentmihalyi’s
concept of Flow suggests that the autotelic experience occurs when
the skill level of the individual matches the challenge presented by
a task or goal. An
imbalance of skill and challenge leads to either a state of boredom
(too much skill and/or
too little challenge) or to a state of anxiety (too little skill and/or
too much challenge)
(Csikszentmihalyi 1996). The state of anxiety is also a key feature
of comedy and
humour.
Peter Waldeck argues, like Freud, that the psychological value of humour
is the reduction
of anxiety. Where they differ is that Waldeck argues that “the
comic experience is closely
linked with the reduction of low level anxiety” (1989, p.68)
where elevated levels of
anxiety “greatly impair the ability to appreciate humor” (1989,
p.66). This in some
measure explains individual responses to comedy; that which one individual
finds
humorous, others find humourless, if not offensive. The relationship
between humour and
anxiety is a useful instrument for the writer attempting to construct
a comedy using the
common structures of comedy, “repetitions, inversions and the
reciprocal interference of
series” (Holland 1982; Vorhaus 1994; Waldeck 1989, p.51). The
focus of anxiety needs
to be alluded to and then discharged. “A joke seems funny only
if it arouses anxiety and
at the same time reduces it” (Waldeck 1989, p.66). Through comic
moments of
superiority/inferiority, humane comedy, reality denial, verbal wit,
and incongruity,
anxiety can be discharged to humorous effect.
This paper examines the association between anxiety and humour in relation
to the
concept of Flow. Can the autotelic experience be achieved by a reduction
in anxiety
brought about by humour? Can we laugh ourselves into Flow?