Portrait of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Birthday profile

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Hungarian-American psychologist and academic (died 2021)

Born
September 29, 1934
Died
October 20, 2021
Zodiac sign
Libra
Birth year
1934

About Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Mihaly Robert Csikszentmihalyi ( MEE-hy CHEEK-sent-mee-HAH-yee, Hungarian: Csíkszentmihályi Mihály Róbert, pronounced [ˈt͡ʃiːksɛntmihaːji ˈmihaːj]; 29 September 1934 – 20 October 2021) was a Hungarian-American psychologist. He recognized and named the psychological concept of "flow", a highly focused mental state conducive to creativity. He was the Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Management at Claremont Graduate University. Earlier, he served as the head of the department of psychology at the University of Chicago and of the department of sociology and anthropology at Lake Forest College. == Early life and education == Mihaly Robert Csikszentmihalyi was born on 29 September 1934 in Fiume, now Rijeka, then part of the Kingdom of Italy. His family name derives from the village of Csíkszentmihály in Transylvania. He 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. Decades later, Mihaly and Moricz were reunited in Budapest. His father was appointed Hungarian Ambassador to Italy shortly after the Second World War, moving the family to Rome.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Career and life highlights

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi timeline

  1. In 2009, Csikszentmihalyi was awarded the Clifton Strengths Prize.
  2. He was awarded the Hungarian Order of Merit in 2014.

The world when Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi was born

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi was born in 1934. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1934

  • #1 song"Stars Fell on Alabama"
  • Top movieIt Happened One Night
  • Best-selling bookTender Is the Night – F. Scott Fitzgerald

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentFirst Masters Tournament held at Augusta National
  • Top headlineFBI kills John Dillinger outside a Chicago theater
  • Technology milestoneFirst streamlined passenger train (Burlington Zephyr)
  • Defining fadShirley Temple mania
  • Notable inventionLaundromat
  • World population2.20 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderFranklin D. Roosevelt
  • Sports championSt. Louis Cardinals (World Series)
  • U.S. population126.4M

1934 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19342026
Gas$0.19$3.45/gal
Average home$4,900$435,000
Average income$2,500$67,500
Minimum wage$0.25$7.25/hr (federal)
Movie ticket$0.20$11.95
Postage stamp$0.03$0.73
Population126.4M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Library of Congress, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.