Self-Transcendence Facilitates Meaning-Making and Flow Experience: Evidence from a Pilot Experimental Study

Evgeny Osin (), Anna Malyutina () and Natalia Kosheleva ()
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Evgeny Osin: National Research University Higher School of Economics
Anna Malyutina: National Research University Higher School of Economics
Natalia Kosheleva: National Research University Higher School of Economics

HSE Working papers from National Research University Higher School of Economics

Abstract: We review the psychological theory of flow and focus on the notion of autotelic personality, arguing that self-transcendence understood within the existential tradition of Frankl and Langle can be seen as a personality disposition that is conducive to flow experience. We present a pilot quasi-experimental study conducted in a student sample (N=84) to investigate the effect of situational meaning and self-transcendence on productivity and flow experience. Students were asked to work on a creative task (which consisted in finding solutions to a social problem) in small groups. Each group was randomly assigned with an instruction presenting the problem as happening either in a distant country (low-meaning) or home country (high-meaning). The outcome variables were measures of flow, perceived meaning, and satisfaction with time. The solutions generated by students were rated by 3 experts. The results showed that the experimental manipulation had an effect on the quality of the resulting solutions, but not on the subjective experience of participants. Self-transcendent individuals tended to experience higher flow under both conditions, however, under the high-meaning condition self-transcendence exhibited a curvilinear association with the experiential outcomes. The findings suggest that self-transcendence can be considered as a candidate trait for autotelic personality and call for more replication studies

Keywords: flow experience; self-transcendence; personal meaning; autotelic personality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Z (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 21 pages
Date: 2015
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-exp and nep-neu
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Published in WP BRP Series: Science, Psychology / PSY, March 2015, pages 1-21

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