From Flow to Optimal Experience: (Re)Searching the Quality of Subjective Experience Throughout Daily Life

Abstract

A great amount of research and theoretical considerations have been updated for several years about flow and optimal experience in the domain of psychology. This chapter is aimed at showing the investigation of a Portuguese research group focused on the study of optimal functioning (Grupo de Investigação para o funciomento óptimo—GIFOp), from the Department of Psychology, University of Minho. Several research lines integrate this group, with several studies about optimal experience, aimed to discuss empirical results but also to present new guidelines for future studies and research goals about this psychological issue. According to this, several on-going studies are being conducted, defining specific research lines focused on five main life contexts (school, family, leisure, therapy, and physiology) with participants from four main populations (adolescents, young adults, adults and the elderly) in order to study the quality of the subjective experience, mainly the optimal experience. Each research line is aimed to contribute to the study of the role or relation of optimal experience with specific contexts and populations, and psycho- social-physiological issues. All together they are aimed to contribute to, on one hand, the study of the concept of optimal experience, such as its conceptual characteristics, conditions for emergence and maintenance, and its impact on individual and social development. On the other hand, and at the same time, they also contribute to the study of its evaluation and measurement methods, in order to answer the methodological concerns. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved). (chapter)