Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar Professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi will speak today and tomorrow at the University of Massachusetts on psychology and his concept, “flow.”
Csikszentmihalyi developed Positive Psychology, which counters psychology’s traditional focus on pathology. The theory includes concepts such as hope, courage, joy, and gratitude. According to Csikszentmihalyi, “flow” is a rare mental state associated with feelings of optimal satisfaction and fulfillment.
He will give his first talk, “Flow – The Psychology of Optimal Experience,” today at 4 p.m. in Herter 227. He will also speak again tomorrow on the “Dawn of Positive Psychology” at 4:30 p.m. in the Campus Center 163C. The lecture is sponsored by the UMass chapter of Psi Chi, the National Honor Society in Psychology.
Csikszentmihalyi is the director of the Quality of Life Research Center. According to its website, the Center “is a non-profit research institute that studies ‘positive psychology;’ that is, human strengths such as optimism, creativity, intrinsic motivation, and responsibility.”
He is also the C.S. and D.J. Davidson Professor of Psychology at the Drucker Graduate School of Management and the emeritus of human development at the University of Chicago, where he taught from 1970 to 1999.
Among Czikszentmihayli’s published works are Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, The Evolving Self, Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life, Creativity and Good Business: Leadership, Flow, and the Making of Meaning.
The Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar Program sponsors visits of at least 12 distinguished scholars who visit 100 colleges and universities. The purpose of the program is to contribute to the intellectual life of the institution by allowing an exchange of ideas between the Visiting Scholars and resident faculty and students.
Each scholar spends two days on each campus, meeting informally with students and faculty members, taking part in classroom discussions, and giving a public lecture open to the entire academic community.
– Courtney Charles
