Abstract
An analysis of the reported experiences of people involved in various play-forms (i.e., rock-climbing, chess, dance, basketball, music composition) suggests that the qualities which make these activities enjoyable are the following: (a) a person is able to concentrate on a limited stimulus field, (b) in which he or she can use his or her skills to meet clear demands, (c) thereby forgetting his or her own problems, and (d) his or her own separate identity, (e) at the same time obtaining a feeling of control over the environment, (f) which may result in a transcendence of ego-boundaries and consequent psychic integration with metapersonal systems. A formal analysis is carried out to establish what are the characteristics that an activitiy must have to provide such intrinsically rewarding experiences. The implications of intrinsic rewards for the understanding of human motivation are briefly discussed.
I can’t abide by the dictum that play is bad and seriousness is laudable. (Bach’s) scherzos are not serious, yet he is sincere all the same. Cubs and pups are playing, But could they learn to hunt and live without such games?
Fritz Perls
Copyright statement “The final definitive of this paper has been published in Journal of Humanistic Psychology, volume 15, number 3, 1975 by Sage Publications Ltd. SAGE Publications, Inc., All rights reserved” © 1975 Sage. http://jhp.sagepub.com/content/15/3/41
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Acknowledgments
Supported through a PHS Grant (NIMH Applied Research Branch IROl MH22883-0I.) I am indebted for help in formulating and stating the issues in this article to several people, specialty H. Stith Bennett and John MacAloon. Interviews were collected by Gary Becker, Paul Gruenberg, Sonja Hoard, John MacAloon, Pam Perun, and Henry Post, as well as the author. Specific advice for revising the article was provided by Thomas C. Greening.
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Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2014). Play and Intrinsic Rewards. In: Flow and the Foundations of Positive Psychology. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9088-8_10
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