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Csikszentmihalyi's flow construct has been suggested as a useful model for describing and operationalizing leisure experiences. Data collected during the daily lives of older adults with the Experience Sampling Method were used to determine if flow experiences are more prevalent in conditions predicted by various theorists to foster leisure states. As predicted, freely chosen activities were accompanied by experiences with higher levels of positive affect, potency, concentration, and lower levels of tension. Also personal skills were more often perceived to match the challenges provided by the freely chosen activities. Counter to expectation, freely chosen but extrinsically motivated activities produced the highest levels of intrinsically rewarding flow. These activities appeared to demand more effort, commitment and obligation than the freely chosen and intrinsically motivated activities some models describe as “pure leisure;” they could be considered a form of “serious leisure.” The pure leisure/flow experience discrepancy also suggests that flow may only operationalize one facet of leisure experiences.
Mannell et al. (Thu,) studied this question.