How to Get Yourself into Flow – Self-Regulation Effects on Task-Related Flow Experiences

• Applicant: Dr. Birte Thissen
• Subject Area: General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 501922164

The proposed research project aims to provide insight into how individuals can mentally prepare themselves for optimal activity engagement, using self-regulation to induce an intrinsically rewarding state of flow during the activity. Bringing together both the prominent concepts of self- regulation and flow from motivational psychology, we seek to find an effective task-related self- regulation intervention that can enable individuals to increase their chances of experiencing flow and thereby its various positive consequences in regard to motivation, well-being, and performance. In three experiments, we will test whether undergoing self-regulation interventions such as Mental Contrasting (MC), Implementation Intentions (II), and Mental Contrasting with Implementation Intentions (MCII) has a positive effect on the occurrence of flow states during subsequent activity engagement across different activity contexts (fiction reading, creative problem-solving, and chess playing). We hypothesize that self-regulation interventions will increase flow by prompting more fluent cognitive processing as well as the investment of more cognitive effort. To test our hypotheses, we will compare the aforementioned self-regulation strategies’ effects on flow (study 1), explore its underlying mental mechanisms (study 2), and systematically vary activity demands to test its boundary conditions (study 3). Results will be used to design a brief mental intervention to support flow states in individuals during activity engagement. Considering the many positive consequences of flow as well as the difficulties to reliably elicit or manipulate this state in experimental studies, having such a flow intervention is of high interest for practitioners and researchers alike.

• DFG Programme: WBP Fellowship
• International Connection: USA
• Host: Professorin Dr. Gabriele Oettingen