Analyzing Skill-Challenge Interaction and Flow State: Insights From Response Surface Analysis Among Board Gamers

In research on flow as a constitutive trait, alongside appropriate levels of attention and motivation, the balance between task challenges and individual skills is emphasized. However, accurately determining the optimal balance to maximize the intensity of the flow state remains a complex task. It is evident that both variables, task challenge and individual skills, are interrelated. Nevertheless, how to precisely express the degree of matching between these variables in explaining the flow state remains an open question. One of the recent proposals for analyzing the (mis)matching of predictor variables explaining outcomes is Response Surface Analysis (RSA). In this study, we employed RSA to verify whether the skill-challenge balance could indeed occur in a configuration that best explains the flow state. We measured flow using the Flow Short Scale, which consists of two subscales: fluency and absorption. The study included 528 participants who were online board game players and were asked to assess their perceived skill levels and the current challenge of the game. RSA revealed two intriguing phenomena concerning both the fluency scale and absorption: firstly, flow is higher when the perceived level of skills exceeds task challenge compared to situations where perceived skills are lower than task challenge; secondly, flow is higher when both perceived skill levels and task challenge are higher compared to when they are at low levels. These findings shed light on a crucial aspect of the occurrence of flow, related to perceived skill levels and subjective task challenge.