270 ■ NOTES
158 The ESM study that looks at how much flow American workers report
on their job and in leisure was reported in Csikszentmihalyi & LeFevre
(1987, 1989) and LeFevre (1988).160 Dissatisfaction. The low percentages of dissatisfied workers were com
puted by a meta-analysis performed in 1980 on 15 national surveys
between 1972 and 1978; see Argyle (1987, p. 32).Our studies of American workers. In addition to the ESM studies,
here I am drawing on data I have collected over a period of five years
(1984-88) on about 400 managers, from different companies and all
parts of the country, who have attended the Vail Management Seminars
organized by the Office of Continuing Education of the University of
Chicago.162 Jobs are easier to enjoy. That leisure can be a problem for many people
has been recognized for a long time by psychologists and psychiatrists.
For example, the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry ended one
of its reports in 1958 with the bald statement “For many Americans,
leisure is dangerous.” The same conclusion was reached by Gussen
(1967), who reviewed some of the psychological ills that people who
cannot adapt to leisure manifest. The role of television as a way of
masking the perils of free time has also been often remarked upon. For
instance, Conrad (1982, p. 108) writes: “The original technological
revolution was about saving time, shortcutting labor; the consumerism
which is the latest installment of that revolution is about wasting the
time we’ve saved, and the institution it deputes to serve that purpose
is television... .”The leisure industry. It is difficult to estimate the economic value of
leisure, because the worth of federal land used for recreation and the
cost of the space devoted to leisure at home and in public buildings are
truly incalculable. Direct spending on leisure in the United States has
been estimated at $160 billion for 1980, double the amount for 1970
when adjusted for inflation. The average household spends about 5
percent of its income directly on leisure (Kelly 1982, p. 9).CHAPTER 8
page xhe importance of human interaction. All the ESM studies show
165 that the quality of experience improves when there are other people
around, and deteriorates whenever the person is alone, even if by his
or her own choice (Larson & Csikszentmihalyi 1978, 1980; Larson,
Csikszentmihalyi, <Sl Graef 1980). A vivid description of how and why
people depend on public opinion for their own beliefs is given by
Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann (1984). From a philosophical perspective,
Martin Heidegger (1962) has analyzed our continuous dependence on