The examination of the relations between autotelic personality characteristics, life goals, meanings of life and flow tendenciens among high school students

Flow theory is based on the perception of a person of the difficulty level and skills required for a job. When the difficulty and skill levels of the job is high, the person experiences flow. "Autotelic" is a term derived from Auto (meaning by itself) and Thelos (meaning Aim) in Greek. Individuals with autotelic personality traits, pay attention to the present, enjoy the current activity, have self-awareness, focus their psychic energy to flow experiences, are curious, and accept feedbacks. Life goals are defined as the point to be achieved and are divided into internal and external goals. The aim of the present study was to investigate the relations between autotelic personality traits, life goals, meaning of life and flow tendencies of high school students on demographic variables (i.e. gender, socio-economic status, grade, school type, parents' education level, and residency). Study group consisted of 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th grade high school students in 2018-2019 education year in different high schools of two districts (Edremit and Erciş) of Van. A total of 616 students (368 female and 248 male) participated in the study. The date were collected via Demographic Information Form, Autotelic Personality Inventory (Yarar, 2015), Swedish Flow Proneness Questionnaire (Ullen et al., 2012), Meaning in Life Questionnaire (Steger et al., 2006), Life Goals Scale (İlhan, 2009). Results revealed that autotelic personality traits significantly differed based on gender; females were found to be more open to collaboration. Moreover, 12th graders were found to have more meaning in life, religious vocational high school students had autotelic personality traits and experience flow in everyday activities. Also, high school students experienced flow in their spare times. The finding are discussed with the relevant literature and suggestions were given for further research. Keywords: Flow, autotelic, life goals, meaning in life, high school students.