Abstract

Background: Positive psychology aims to broaden positive subjective experiences to an interpersonal level. In order to the further studies on the dynamics of Csikszentmihalyi’s flow experience in an interactive situation, we aimed to support a basic assumption through a well-controlled experiment: if flow in an interactive task is more intense than in a solitary activity.
Methods: 80 participants (age: M = 24.06, SD = 6.74) were tested in an experiment with a repeatedmeasures design. They were unfamiliar with each other, and took part in a solitary and a social creativity test as flow induction activities. The effect of the context was tested in this experiment on flow experience measured by a self-reported survey.
Results: According to the results, significant difference was found in the intensity of flow: the absorption in the task (t(79)= 4.90, p < .001, d = .57) and the total flow score as flow intensity (t(79)= 3.51, p = .001, d = .38) was higher in the social situation.
Conclusion: In this study we supported that flow in a shared, cooperative activity can be more intense than in solitary situations. We assume that partners can provide feedback for the personbecause of the person-environment interaction, therefore they can influence the intensity of absorption to the flow zone.