13 Facts About Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi recognized and named the psychological concept of "flow", a highly focused mental state conducive to productivity.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi was the Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Management at Claremont Graduate University.

Mihaly Robert Csikszentmihalyi was born on 29 September 1934 in Fiume, now Rijeka, then part of the Kingdom of Italy.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi was the third son of a career diplomat at the Hungarian Consulate in Fiume.

In 1944, when Csikszentmihalyi was ten years old, one of his two older half-brothers was killed in the Siege of Budapest, and the other, Moricz, was sent to labor camps in Siberia by the Soviets.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's father was appointed Hungarian Ambassador to Italy shortly after the Second World War, moving the family to Rome.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi then taught at Lake Forest College before becoming a professor at the University of Chicago in 1969.

One state that Csikszentmihalyi researched was that of the autotelic personality.

One personality characteristic that Csikszentmihalyi researched in detail was that of intrinsic motivation.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi had two sons: Christopher Csikszentmihalyi, an artist and professor at Cornell University, and Mark Csikszentmihalyi, chair of the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of California, Berkeley.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi received the Szechenyi Prize at a ceremony in Budapest in 2011.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi was awarded the Hungarian Order of Merit in 2014.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi was a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of both the National Academy of Education and the Academy of Leisure Sciences.