Kurt Lewin

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Kurt Lewin

Kurt Lewin , 1890-1947, American psychologist, b. Germany, Ph.D. Univ. of Berlin, 1914. He taught at the Univ. of Berlin before coming to the United States in 1932. He was professor (1935-44) of child psychology at the Univ. of Iowa and director (from 1944) of the research center for group dynamics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Influenced by Gestalt psychology, he was concerned with problems of motivation of individuals and of groups as determined by the context of a given situation. His work opened up a new realm of psychological investigation. His writings include A Dynamic Theory of Personality (tr. 1935), Principles of Topological Psychology (1936), The Conceptual Representation and Measurement of Psychological Forces (1938), and Resolving Social Conflicts (1947).

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Lewin, Kurt

A Dictionary of Sociology | 1998 | | Â© A Dictionary of Sociology 1998, originally published by Oxford University Press 1998. (Hide copyright information) Copyright

Lewin, Kurt (1890–1947) A German-born social psychologist who moved to America in the early 1930s and worked mainly at the University of Iowa and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His holistic field theory, derived from Gestalt theory but with added social and motivational elements, sees individual behaviour as a function of the psychological field or life-space–that is, the individual and an environment, which is perceived by the individual in terms of his or her needs and goals.

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