Objective/BackgroundFlow, a psychological state of intense engagement in and enjoyment of an activity, can arise during both solitary and socially interactive experiences. In the literature, whereas people high in extraversion have difficulty achieving flow in solitude, those with an autotelic personality—a combination of traits that make people prone to flow—readily experience flow in both solitary and interactive conditions. In this pre‐registered experiment, we investigated whether autotelic personality mitigates the negative association between solitary flow and extraversion.MethodParticipants and their romantic partners (final N = 368) played the game Perfection™ in three conditions (order was counterbalanced): alone (solitary condition), in the presence of their partner without interaction (mere‐presence condition), and collaboratively (interactive condition).ResultsThere were independent, positive main effects of extraversion and autotelic personality on flow experience in mere‐presence and interactive conditions. However, the positive effect of extraversion on solitary flow was only significant among participants with high (vs. low) autotelic personality. In all conditions, flow experience was associated with greater low‐arousal positive affect and lesser high‐arousal negative affect.ConclusionsThe findings shed light on the role of personality in promoting solitary flow experiences, and particularly how traits might interact to determine optimal and non‐optimal conditions for achieving flow.

中文翻译：

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孤独但流动：自主人格和外向性对孤独流动的影响


Objective/BackgroundFlow 是一种强烈参与和享受活动的心理状态，可以在单独和社交互动体验中出现。在文献中，虽然高度外向的人很难在独处中实现心流，但那些具有自主人格的人——使人容易心流的特征组合——很容易在独处和互动条件下体验心流。在这个预先注册的实验中，我们研究了自主人格是否减轻了孤独流和外向性之间的负关联。方法参与者和他们的浪漫伴侣（最终 N = 368）在三种条件下（顺序被抵消）玩了完美™游戏：单独（单独状态）、在伴侣在场且没有互动（纯粹在场条件）和协作（互动条件）。结果外向性和自主人格对单纯存在和互动条件下的心流体验存在独立、积极的主效应。然而，外向对孤立流的积极影响仅在具有高 （vs. 低） 自体人格的参与者中显着。在所有情况下，心流体验与较大的低唤醒积极影响和较小的高唤醒消极影响相关。结论研究结果阐明了人格在促进孤独心流体验中的作用，特别是特征如何相互作用以确定实现心流的最佳和非最佳条件。