Title: What Do You Enjoy Doing? | Psychology Today
Headings: What Do You Enjoy Doing?
Art Markman Ph.D.
What Do You Enjoy Doing?
A challenge can be an enjoyable thing.

Content: Games that they felt were challenging were enjoyed more than games that were easy. Games in which a player felt he played well were enjoyed more than games in which a player felt he did not play well. This study suggests that people find activities particularly rewarding when they are challenged and engaged. Of course, this result might just reflect something about chess players. Perhaps the people who gravitate to chess are ones that enjoy a challenge. So, in a second study over a thousand people were tracked for a week at a time. Participants wore a watched that beeped at random times of the day. When it beeped, participants were supposed to fill out a survey about what they were doing, why they were doing it, how much they enjoyed it, and they answered questions about whether the activity was challenging and whether they were performing well. There are two nice aspects of this method. First, the researchers were able to sample a large number of activities.