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The Experience of Freedom in Daily Life

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Flow and the Foundations of Positive Psychology

Abstract

Self-reports in response to repeated random paging provide reliable profiles of daily activities and psychological states relevant to the measurement of the quality of life. The subjective experience of freedom was shown to vary through the day depending on the activity subjects engaged in, depending on their sex, and time of day. The relationship of perceived skills and of intrinsic motivation to the experience of freedom was examined. Results that conflict with previous findings of experimental studies are explained in terms of differences between real life and laboratory settings.

This research was supported by U.S. Public Health Service grant #R01 HM 22883-04.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Behavioral & Organizational Science, Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, CA, USA

    Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

  2. University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    Ronald Graef

Authors
  1. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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  2. Ronald Graef
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Correspondence to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi .

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© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Csikszentmihalyi, M., Graef, R. (2014). The Experience of Freedom in Daily Life. In: Flow and the Foundations of Positive Psychology. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9088-8_4

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