
A Hungarian psychology professor, who emigrated to the United States at the age of 22. Now at Claremont Graduate University, he is the former head of the department of psychology at the University of Chicago and of the department of sociology and anthropology at Lake Forest College. He is noted for both his work in the study of happiness and creativity and also for his notoriously difficult name, in terms of pronunciation for non-native speakers of the Hungarian language, but is best known as the architect of the notion of flow and for his years of research and writing on the topic. He is the author of many books and over 120 articles or book chapters. Martin Seligman, former president of the American Psychological Association, described Csikszentmihalyi as the world's leading researcher on positive psychology. Csikszentmihalyi once said "Repression is not the way to virtue. When people restrain themselves out of fear, their lives are by necessity diminished. Only through freely chosen discipline can life be enjoyed and still kept within the bounds of reason." His works are influential and are widely cited.
Books

Flow
The Psychology of Optimal Experience
1990

Living Well
The Psychology of Everyday Life
1997

Creativity
Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention
1996

Optimal Experience
Psychological Studies of Flow in Consciousness
1988

The Meaning of Things
Domestic Symbols and the Self
1981

Flow
Living at the Peak of your Abilities
1994

Good Business
Leadership, Flow and the Making of Meaning
2003

Running Flow
2016

The Art of Seeing
An Interpretation of the Aesthetic Encounter
1991

Beyond Boredom and Anxiety
1975

Talented Teenagers
The Roots of Success and Failure
1993

Finding Flow
The Psychology Of Engagement With Everyday Life
2020

A Life Worth Living
Contributions to Positive Psychology
2006

Starea de flux. Psihologia experienţei supreme
1995

Applied Positive Psychology
Improving Everyday Life, Health, Schools, Work, and Society
2011

Becoming Adult
How Teenagers Prepare for the World of Work
2000

The Evolving Self
A Psychology for the Third Millennium
1993

Being Adolescent
1984

Creatività
Il flow e la psicologia della scoperta e dell'invenzione
2023