The flow experience: Polish adaptation and validation of the psychological flow scale (PFS)

Marcin Wojtasiński, Przemysław Tużnik, Tomasz Jankowski, Silvia Leoni, Mateusz Chwaszcz, Dorota Miszczyszyn, Maria Banasik and Paweł Augustynowicz

PLOS ONE, 2025, vol. 20, issue 12, 1-19

Abstract: Flow is an absorbing, effortless, and intrinsically rewarding state that unfolds over time. We adapted the nine-item Psychological Flow Scale (PFS) to Polish and evaluated it in a preregistered laboratory study designed to capture fine-grained changes in flow. After individual skill calibration, participants completed a 20-trial pursuit-tracking task following a chaotic Lorenz trajectory; data from 140 participants met inclusion criteria. Multilevel confirmatory factor analysis supported the theorized structure: Absorption, Effortless Control, and Intrinsic Reward formed correlated first-order factors nested under a second-order Flow factor at both the within-person and between-person levels (χ²(46) = 345.35, CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.05). Reliability was excellent for aggregated scores (generalizability RkF = 1.00) and remained high for detecting trial-to-trial change (Rc = 0.88), indicating sensitivity to momentary fluctuations. Convergent validity was evidenced by moderate correlations with the Flow Short Scale administered concurrently (r = .28–.39), low-to-modest correlations with task performance score (r = .13–.32), and low-to-modest associations with the General Flow Proneness Scale (r = .13–.26). Complementary hierarchical exploratory graph analysis corroborated this three-facet-plus-general structure. Collectively, these findings establish the Polish PFS as a reliable, culturally appropriate instrument for tracking the temporal dynamics of optimal experience and illustrate how repeated measurement coupled with multilevel modelling can advance research on flow.

Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0335907

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0335907

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