Flow

Abstract

The flow construct first appeared within humanistic perspectives in psychology in the 1960s. Csikszentmihalyi's theory of human happiness, balance, and optimal experience is today known as flow theory. Flow is characterized by six specific traits: balance between an individual's skills and an activity's challenge, focused attention, temporal distortion, task enjoyment, intrinsic motivation, and the transition of an individual's mental state from self‐centeredness to self‐transcendence. Sherry introduced the flow construct to media psychological research in the early 2000s with the goal of explaining individual differences in media enjoyment. Ensuing theorizing introduced neurocognitive conceptualizations of the flow construct in the mid‐ to late 2000s with the transient hypofrontality hypothesis and the synchronization theory of flow as the two most influential conceptualizations within media psychology. Future flow research within media psychology will likely take advantage of this neurocognitive theorizing along with innovative analytical approaches within the cognitive sciences like network neuroscience.