I was looking through Csikszentmihalyi's book for a succinct definition of what 'autotelic' means, but he teases out the concept throughout his work.    From Wordnik.com.  [dougbelshaw.com] Reference

They were generally sceptical of ˜autotelic™ conceptions of the artwork that view it as a self-contained object answerable only to its own formal rules.    From Wordnik.com.  [Existentialist Aesthetics] Reference

Rejecting the autotelic meaning offered in the narrative in and of itself, these readings become attempts to bind it to an "objective reality" which, in a postmodernist view, does not exist.    From Wordnik.com.  [Notes on Strange Fiction: Postmodern(ism)] Reference

It would be a mistake to conflate figurative language with directly referential language, but it is equally a mistake, I think, to treat this sort of "poetic" articulation as autotelic artificing.    From Wordnik.com.  [Archive 2008-08-01] Reference

Zhuangzi intimates that the flow-like experience can extend beyond the specific act of butchering to become a continuous state this is similar to Csikszentmihalyi's concept of the "autotelic personality".    From Wordnik.com.  [Lance P. Hickey, Ph.D.: ‘Flow’ Experiences: The Secret To Ultimate Happiness?] Reference

As part of the former case, she presents Richardson's vendetta against Irish book piracy as an example of a rigid, autotelic conception of originality -- one that admits of neither cultural contribution nor even transmission.    From Wordnik.com.  [Introduction: Juridical Texts and Transgressive Containment] Reference

As figurative rather than representative, narrative is not crudely polemical in the way it relates to its subjects, speaking of it only implicitly at most; but as figurative rather than fabricative, narrative is not autotelic at all.    From Wordnik.com.  [Archive 2008-08-01] Reference

Crucially, in viewing figurative language as a process of generating idiom, and associating this with the message as target, this model constitutes a wholesale rejection of the idea that the text as artwork is to be taken as an autotelic object.    From Wordnik.com.  [Archive 2008-08-01] Reference

Characteristically, Talese maintains a tone of uplift about the practice, as if in the end society would be working nicely were all its individual members wanking away in autotelic equilibrium, appropriating each other without the trouble and fuss of actual contact.    From Wordnik.com.  [Mr. P, Mrs. V, and Mr. T] Reference

If I had to look for differences, I guess, among the interesting distinctions are that whereas Focault sees the heterotopia as a site of potential political resistance at least that is how his comments are read today by many, Huizinga sees the play space as separate and transcendent -- autotelic as Bernard Suits might say.    From Wordnik.com.  [CFP: Breaking the Magic Circle] Reference

This is to say that narrative is essentially an act of figuration: its function is not to represent, but neither is it wholly autotelic; rather it is figurative, a crafting of idiom at a level higher and more abstract even than extended metaphor, at the level of stories -- which exist to revise the code, in Jakobson's terms, to establish new mappings between code and context.    From Wordnik.com.  [Archive 2008-08-01] Reference

If we read it simply as a pataphysical narrative, a fourth reading is possible, a reading that is not metaphysical but not entirely autotelic -- one in which, regardless of the context we project onto the events, it is understood as having something relevant to say as regards actual human relationships, about empathy and the lack thereof, about alienation and our capacity for cruelty.    From Wordnik.com.  [Notes on Strange Fiction: Postmodern(ism)] Reference

That's not intrinsic or autotelic, there is still a stimulus.    From Wordnik.com.  [dougbelshaw.com] Reference

Having an autotelic self implies the ability to sustain involvement.    From Wordnik.com.  [dougbelshaw.com] Reference

Back to motivation, I disagree with your having used exotelic and autotelic.    From Wordnik.com.  [dougbelshaw.com] Reference

The elements of the autotelic personality are related to one another by links of mutual causation.    From Wordnik.com.  [dougbelshaw.com] Reference

Albeit he waves off his disciples, fateful, mild to their autotelic reels; how male they remain, despite his example.    From Wordnik.com.  [blog] Reference

The outcome of having an autotelic self … is that one can enjoy life even when objective circumstances are brutish and nasty.    From Wordnik.com.  [dougbelshaw.com] Reference

There are many theories of motivation out there that, many of which run absolutely counter to the false categorization of intrinsic / extrinsic or autotelic / exotelic.    From Wordnik.com.  [dougbelshaw.com] Reference

These externally-driven motivating forces are known as exotelic, with Csikszentmihalyi keen to point out that most things we do involve combinations of autotelic and exotelic factors.    From Wordnik.com.  [dougbelshaw.com] Reference

If this difference obtains in the real world - and I think that it does - then it is vitally important that we educate young people how to become more autotelic and therefore achieve Flow states.    From Wordnik.com.  [dougbelshaw.com] Reference

To deny these aspects entirely however, insisting on a view of narrative as autotelic construct (pure form) or as commnicative experience (pure content), is to deny the full extent of narrative's power, it seems to me.    From Wordnik.com.  [Notes From The Geek Show] Reference

After choosing a system of action, a person with an autotelic personality grows deeply involved with whatever he is doing … To do so successfully one must learn to balance the opportunities for action with the skills one possesses … To achieve involvement with an action system, one must find a relatively close mesh between the demands of the environment and one's capacity to act.    From Wordnik.com.  [dougbelshaw.com] Reference

Csikszentmihalyi lists conditions necessary for the occurrence and continuation of flow experience: clear goals and feedback; balance between challenges and skills; action and awareness merged; concentration on task; sense of potential control; loss of self-consciousness; altered sense of time; autotelic (self-rewarding) experience. explaining his studies about the roots of happiness and the concept of flow for which he is famous.    From Wordnik.com.  [BC Bloggers] Reference

What I'm more interested in here is the implicit assumption of what narrative is for, because while I'm exactly the type of writer who's obsessed with the aesthetics of the artifice itself, while I'm actually rather dubious of the privileging of the writer as dispenser of grand or pointed insights in their stories, I'm not entirely convinced by the contrary viewpoint that seems to predominate in communities bound more to the literary genres and to the critique of literature in general, where narrative is seen as ultimately autotelic -- having a purpose in and of itself.    From Wordnik.com.  [Archive 2008-08-01] Reference

This autotelic concern with the poem’s own devices positions her squarely in the varied tradition of Yiddish Modernism.    From Wordnik.com.  [Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman.] Reference

Model autotelic behaviour.    From Wordnik.com.  [dougbelshaw.com] Reference

"autotelic personality".    From Wordnik.com.  [LinuxChix aggregator] Reference