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Flow, Leisure, and Positive Youth Development

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Flow Experience

Abstract

Leisure has been associated with several developmental opportunities that foster adolescents’ optimal growth. Considering leisure as a context, activity or experience, researchers have focused on its role in the study of flow experience. Both leisure and flow experiences, and the way they interrelate, emerge as relevant to promoting positive youth development, daily and along life trajectories. This chapter aims to present and analyze conceptual and empirical evidence about the connection between positive youth development, leisure, and flow experience. Among the empirical evidence, we highlight studies from our Portuguese research team, the Research Group on Optimal Functioning – GIFOp, aimed at studying adolescents’ optimal functioning. Specifically, we illustrate results according to different aims and methodologies. In this sense, we discuss adolescents’ daily life perceptions of activities and quality of experiences, and future life goals, measured by retrospective self-report questionnaires; and flow, optimal experience and motivational aspects of subjective experience, by real-time measures, specifically the Experience Sampling Method (ESM). The conclusion sheds light on the importance of a psycho-social-ecological approach when studying adolescents’ flow and leisure experiences and how these enhance positive youth development. Future research directions will consider the importance of merging school and leisure contexts, highlighting the role of leisure structured activities to promote flow and optimal experiences, when considered as different components of subjective experience. In addition, the use of different methodologies based on both retrospective and real-time measures, are addressed as being equally important and relevant to continue the main conceptual discussion around flow and optimal experiences in adolescence.

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Acknowledgements and Funding

This study was conducted at Psychology Research Centre, University of Minho, and supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology and the Portuguese Ministery of Education and Science through national funds and when applicable co-financed by FEDER under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement (UID/PSI/01662/2013).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Psychology, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal

    Teresa Freire, Dionísia Tavares, Eliana Silva & Ana Teixeira

Authors
  1. Teresa Freire
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  2. Dionísia Tavares
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  3. Eliana Silva
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  4. Ana Teixeira
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Teresa Freire .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden

    László Harmat

  2. Department of Education, University of Aarhus, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Frans Ørsted Andersen

  3. Department of Education, University of Aarhus, Aarhus, Denmark

    Fredrik Ullén

  4. School of Health Professionals, University of Brighton, Eastbourne, East Sussex, United Kingdom

    Jon Wright

  5. School of Health Sciences, University of Brighton, East Bourne, East Sussex, United Kingdom

    Gaynor Sadlo

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Freire, T., Tavares, D., Silva, E., Teixeira, A. (2016). Flow, Leisure, and Positive Youth Development. In: Harmat, L., Ørsted Andersen, F., Ullén, F., Wright, J., Sadlo, G. (eds) Flow Experience. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28634-1_11

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