Against the Flow

In the past decades, flow research has considerably developed and become a respected field in psychology. However, persistent concerns remain regarding the definition of flow, as multiple and at times conflicting conceptualizations have been employed since Csikszentmihalyi introduced the concept in the 1970s. In this theoretical article, I examine the main ambiguities surrounding its definition and argue that they carry significant implications for flow research, as well as for the broader study of emotion. Though several solutions have been proposed, I suggest that flow research, perhaps paradoxically, should let go of the concept of flow and focus on more well-defined and simpler constructs to make further progress.