Heritability of proneness for psychological flow experiences

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Abstract

Flow is a subjective experience of high but effortless attention, loss of self-awareness, control, and enjoyment that can occur during active performance of challenging tasks. Proneness to experience flow is associated with personality, specifically with low neuroticism and high conscientiousness. We investigated genetic and non-genetic influences on flow proneness in 444 adult twin pairs. Data were collected using an on-line administration of the Swedish Flow Proneness Questionnaire, which includes separate scales for flow proneness in three major domains of life: work, maintenance, and leisure. We found moderate (.29–.35) heritabilities for the flow scales. Twin correlations as well as multivariate modeling suggested non-additive genetic influences. Genetic influences were almost entirely shared for the three flow scales and genetic correlations between the scales were very high (.81–.97), suggesting that the same genes influence flow proneness independently of domain. Non-shared environmental influences, in contrast, were largely specific to each flow scale. We conclude that an individual’s general proneness to experience flow is influenced by the same genetic factors regardless of domain, and these may be associated with personality traits that are conducive to flow. In addition, specific environmental factors appear to be of importance for within-individual differences in flow proneness in different domains.

Highlights

Heritability of flow proneness in the three domains ranged between 29% and 35%. ► Genetic influences were mostly shared with genetic correlations between .81–.97. ► Non-shared environmental influences were largely specific to each flow scale. ► Flow proneness is influenced by the same genes regardless of domain. ► Within-individual differences in the flow domains are due to environmental factors.

Introduction

The performance of challenging activities, in which the difficulty of the task is matched to the skill level of the person, is sometimes accompanied by a psychological state termed flow (Csikszentmihalyi & Csikszentmihalyi, 1988). Flow is a state of high attention to task, but it differs subjectively from mental effort in that concentration feels effortless and there is a sense of automaticity of action (Csikszentmihalyi & Nakamura, 2010). Flow and effortful attention also appear to differ in terms of physiological correlates, with flow being characterized by deep respiration and activation of facial muscles related to positive affect whereas effortful attention is associated with fast, shallow breathing and activation of the “frown” muscle (de Manzano et al., 2010, Keller et al., 2011, Ullén et al., 2010). Other elements in the flow experience are enjoyment, low self-awareness, a sense of high control, and altered time perception (Csikszentmihalyi & Csikszentmihalyi, 1988).

There are large individual differences in how often people experience flow in daily life (Asakawa, 2010, Csikszentmihalyi and Csikszentmihalyi, 1988, Csikszentmihalyi and Schneider, 2000). Proneness to flow experiences, as measured by self-report questionnaires, is associated with personality. When studying relations between flow proneness and Big Five personality dimensions, we found a negative association (β = −.41) with neuroticism and a positive association (β = .30) with conscientiousness (Ullén et al., 2012). In line with these findings, other studies have found negative associations between flow proneness and trait anxiety, which is related to neuroticism (Asakawa, 2010, Jackson et al., 1998). Positive associations have been reported between flow proneness and traits related to low neuroticism (stability), e.g. active coping strategies (Asakawa, 2010), psychological well-being (Asakawa, 2004, Asakawa, 2010, Ishimura and Kodama, 2006), and life satisfaction (Asakawa, 2010). We also found neuroticism to be negatively associated with flow proneness in all studied domains of life – work, maintenance, and leisure – suggesting that this trait interferes with processes important for flow, regardless of task and context (Ullén et al., 2012). Possible explanations include that negative affect directly interferes with the enjoyment component of flow, and that behavioral instability and impulsivity negatively affect the likelihood of entering and maintaining flow states.

While flow proneness is associated with personality, it appears to have weak or nil associations with general cognitive ability (Ullén et al., 2012). This further supports the notion that effortful attention and flow differ in underlying mechanisms, since the capacity for effortful attention does show a substantial positive association with general intelligence (Schweizer and Moosbrugger, 2004, Schweizer et al., 2005).

Here we used data from 2937 twin individuals to model genetic and non-genetic influences on flow proneness, measured with the Swedish Flow Proneness Questionnaire (SFPQ) (Ullén et al., 2012). The SFPQ has three subscales, providing measures of proneness for flow experiences in three domains of life (work, maintenance, and leisure). Given the substantial associations between personality and flow proneness discussed above, we hypothesized, first, a moderate heritability for flow proneness, since earlier studies have typically found broad heritability estimates of Big Five personality traits in the range of 40–60% (Bouchard and McGue, 2003, Distel et al., 2009, Riemann et al., 1997). Secondly, as several studies have demonstrated non-additive as well as additive genetic effects on neuroticism (Distel et al., 2009, Eaves et al., 1998, Keller et al., 2005, Lake et al., 2000) it was of interest to investigate whether there are non-additive genetic influences on flow proneness. Finally, we suggest that general mechanisms (the same underlying genes) influence flow proneness, independently of task and context. Here, for the first time, we explore the genetic and environmental architecture underlying the three different flow domains and their interrelation utilizing the classical twin design.

Section snippets

Participants

The present data were collected as a web-based survey that was part of a larger wave of data collection (SALTY) by the Swedish Twin Registry (STR), targeting 25,000 twins born between 1943 and 1958. Personal login and password for the web-survey were sent to the participants through ordinary mail. Ethical approval for the study was given by the Regional Ethical Review Board in Stockholm (Dnr 2008/1735-31/3).

After excluding twin individuals who had not filled in the flow questionnaire (N = 97) or

Results

Means of the flow variables were relatively similar across the three domains (Table 1). In both males and females, FP-Work was slightly higher than FP-Leisure, which in turn was higher than FP-Maintenance. There was a significant effect of age on all flow variables, with an increase in flow proneness with increasing age. Sex had effects on FP-Maintenance and FP-Work, with females scoring higher than males. Therefore, sex and age were retained as covariates in all analyses. Phenotypic

Discussion

We investigated genetic and environmental influences on individual differences in the proneness to experience psychological flow in three different domains in a sample of Swedish adult twins. As hypothesized, we found a significant but moderate heritability of flow proneness ranging between .29 and .35, which is in line with, albeit slightly lower than, heritability estimates typically found for related personality traits (e.g. neuroticism) (Bouchard and McGue, 2003, Distel et al., 2009, Eaves

Acknowledgements

The present work was supported by grants from the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Fund, the Swedish Scientific Council, and the Sven and Dagmar Salén Foundation.

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