Department of Psychology,
Goldsmiths, University of London,
Lewisham Way,
London, SE14 6NW
The Creative Flow States and Wellbeing Study
(Basic Version)
Thanks for taking part. Your responses will be used to determine whether people who experience more flow states have better wellbeing.
Access to the personalised results portal will open in late 2024. Participants that provided an email address will be notified of this.
Other Updates will be published via our social media accounts and website:
What was I tested on?
You answered questions about what your creative practice consists of, including your tenure and recent patterns in your workflow concerning how often and long you work for. We know that tenure is associated with flow proneness, but we don’t know whether this association is consistent between creative practices. There is a lack of research on the association between flow experiences and ‘creation’, with most research focusing on ‘practice’ and ‘performance’ contexts. This research will be some of the first to test and compare these associations.
You also answered questions about your dispositional tendency to experience flow states whilst engaged in either/or creation, practice, and performance contexts. These questions were taken from the Flow Short Scale (Rheinberg et al., 2003), which is frequently used to measure flow in scientific research. We also included questions about flow experiences that are not included in this scale. These include ‘emotional connection’ and ‘thinking about what others think about your work’, which we think play a unique role in flow states that happen during creative contexts. We also asked about how dynamic or consistent your goals are in your work and whether your goals are decided by you or others. Whilst dynamic contexts with frequently changing goals are assumed to be a hindrance for flow state experiences, we think that creative individuals are uniquely equipped to overcome this hinderance. We also think that self-initiated goals facilitate flow compared to goals prescribed by others.
Wellbeing resources
You also answered questions about your wellbeing based on the WHO-5 Wellbeing Index (World Health Organisation, 1998). This is commonly used as an initial screening tool for measuring wellbeing and depression. We think that flow experiences have a positive effect on wellbeing. If you feel negatively affected by answering these questions and/or would like to seek support concerning your wellbeing or depression, please find a list of resources below. You are also welcome to contact the researchers at Creative Empirical and Goldsmiths, University of London to request further guidance via the contact details below.
What happens to the data I've provided?
We have implemented several measures to guarantee the information you provided remains protected and anonymous.
If you provided an e-mail address, we have also given you the option to specify your communication preferences. If you would like to change your communication preferences, you can do so without needing to justify your decision at any time. If you would like to withdraw your response data, you can do so without needing to justify your decision within 7 days of completing the survey. Requests after 7 days will be accepted on the condition that the data has not been aggregated and shared on a publicly available platform. If you would like to make these changes, please contact Oliver Durcan, the primary researcher (odurc001 @ gold.ac.uk), and include your unique ID.
Data handling complies with GDPR and the Goldsmiths data protection policy, which you can read more about here. This study has ethical approval from Goldsmiths' Department of Psychology Research Ethics Committee and aligns with the Universities UK Research Integrity Concordat. Data is stored in a Microsoft OneDrive cloud server, which is protected with two factor authentication on two password protected devices. Only Oliver Durcan (Primary Researcher) has access to raw data files.
Contact
Issues/Queries
Complaints