Lewin, Kurt
Lewin, Kurt
Kurt Lewin (1890–1947) was born in Mogilno, Prussia. After studying at the universities of Freiburg and Munich, he completed his doctorate in philosophy at the University of Berlin in 1914. He taught in Berlin from 1921 to 1933, at which time he left Germany. In the United States he was a visiting professor at Stanford and at Cornell before becoming professor of child psychology in the Child Welfare Research Station of the State University of Iowa in 1935. In 1945 he left Iowa to found the Research Center for Group Dynamics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also served as a visiting professor at the University of California in Berkeley and at Harvard.
During his thirty years of scientific work, Lewin’s theoretical interests and the focuses of his research shifted several times. At first he was concerned with the study and analysis of the cognitive processes of learning and perception; with the dynamics of individual motivation and emotion; and with the interpersonal processes of reward and punishment, conflict, and social influence. In his next phase, he conducted and stimulated research on group phenomena such as leadership, social climate, group standards, and values. Finally, he was led to an examination of the social restraints imposed on groups by technology, economics, law, and politics. Although his interests changed and developed, he nevertheless carefully adhered to a central theoretical tenet: that to represent and interpret faithfully the complexity of concrete reality situations requires continual crossing of the traditional boundaries of the social sciences, rather than a progressive narrowing of attention to a limited number of variables.
The theory that requires this interdisciplinary approach to psychological and social reality has at various times been referred to, by Lewin himself and by others, as “dynamic theory,” “topological psychology,” and “field theory.” Field theory was Lewin’s final preference. Briefly stated, it holds that events are determined by forces acting on them in an immediate field rather than by forces acting at a distance. Field theory may be characterized as a method of analyzing causal relations and building scientific constructs, that is, a theory about theory building, or a metatheory. At the same time, Lewin’s field theory is a set of constructs, developed through empirical research, for describing and interpreting psychological and social phenomena.
Field theory as metatheory . The major tenets of field theory as metatheory for social science have been identified by Cartwright (1959, p. 7).
(1) The full empirical reality of human experience and behavior—not just certain abstract aspects that are most accessible or easy to manipulate—must be comprehended in a scientific manner. The observation of behavior in a real-life setting (what has been called naturalistic observation) and phenomenological analysis are procedures that may prevent scientific formalization from focusing on trivial aspects of human behavior.
(2) The language of concepts that is developed must be “two-faced,” providing both a rigorous terminology for describing the behavioral events of the real world and a set of theoretical constructs that can be related to each other logically in the formulation of lawful regularities about the causation of behavioral events.
(3) The concepts must “fit” the nature of psychological phenomena, which they will not do if they are simply borrowed from physical or biological science. Presuppositions about the ultimate unity of science should not be allowed to distort the development of concepts that are intended to describe psychological phenomena (emotions, hopes, fears, illusions) rather than biological or physical processes.
(4) Lewin’s principle of concreteness states that effects “can be produced only by what is ’concrete,’ i.e., by something that has the position of an individual fact which exists at a certain moment” (1936, p. 32). From this important principle Lewin derived several of his basic ideas: that every behavioral event must be viewed as caused by several interdependent features of the total concrete situation of that moment; that the dynamics of a behavioral event cannot be adequately comprehended by the specialized concepts of a particular discipline or scientific specialty, for example, cognition, learning, economics, or political science; that the “life space” or concrete field of all coexisting psychological facts is quite different from the quantified dimensions of that situation; that causation is a contemporary process—“Since neither the past nor the future exists at the present moment it cannot have effects at the present”(ibid., p. 35).
(5) Mathematics provides basic tools for developing a formal systematic theory of psychological processes, but this does not mean that all phenomena can be treated quantitatively. Non-Euclidean geometry seemed to Lewin the most appropriate mathematical tool for treating many empirical aspects of human behavior in terms of psychological space.
(6) Basic research that is generated by the need to develop field theoretical concepts should be of great practical value in the world of action. To Lewin this meant that there “is nothing as practical as a good theory.” He demonstrated this again and again in his own contributions to the understanding of many critical social problems, such as autocracy, self-hatred, scapegoating, intergroup conflict, industrial inefficiency, conservative food habits, and child rearing. [SeePrejudice.]
Experimental research . In his search for a comprehensive conceptual grasp of significant psychological events and processes Lewin instigated and led many research programs, Often they were carried on by his students after he himself had turned his attention to new problems.
His first research sequence began with an experimental critique of the work of Ach (1910) on “associative bonds” in the process of remembering. Lewin moved beyond structural concepts of remembering to such notions as intention to recall and expectation about events. Basic work was done by Ovsiankina (1928) and Zeigarnik (1927), who demonstrated experimentally that the tendency to recall interrupted tasks is stronger than the tendency to recall completed tasks and that there are forces acting toward resuming and completing interrupted activities.
This work on psychological interruption and on the forces acting toward resumption and completion led directly to another program of research that represents an early experimental investigation of motivational concepts. The research sought to discover whether the completion of a task different from the interrupted one can reduce the tendency to resume the interrupted one. In other words, can one task have substitute value for another? Lewin’s students Lissner (1933) and Mahler (1933) demonstrated that tasks of different degrees of similarity and different degrees of reality have different types of substitute value. An important series of studies by Adler (1939), Cartwright (1942), and Sliosberg (1934) further developed this area of inquiry.
Lewin’s interest in the internal dynamics of motivation led him to initiate another series of studies on the psychological process of satiation. Karsten (1928) and other students (Freund 1930; Kounin 1941; Seashore & Bavelas 1942) discovered that the time it takes to become satiated with a task depends on the over-all meaning context of the activity, on ego involvement in the activity, on the physiological state of the person, and on the degree of rigidity of interpersonal psychological systems.
Another important series of studies of motivational dynamics dealt with frustration and regression. Again, Lewin’s plan of research was primarily carried out by others. Dembo’s initial work in Berlin (1931) consisted of careful observational studies of the symptoms of emotional tension as contrasted to the symptoms of task- or problem-solving tension that occurred when subjects were assigned impossible tasks. The symptoms observed included anger, aggression, regression, substitution, and flight from reality. Later studies by Barker, Dembo, and Lewin (1941) and by Wright (1942) established important connections between frustration and intellectual regression as measured by the developmental level of play activity before and after frustration situations.
Dembo (1931) and Hoppe (1931) did valuable research on the concept of level of aspiration, and again other research developed from it. After Jerome Frank, one of Lewin’s students, presented a summary in English of the German research (1935 a; 1935 b), a flood of studies by American investigators followed. The early research indicated that the experience of success or failure depends to a very significant degree upon the person’s aspiration rather than upon some objective standard of performance. There was also clear evidence that the motivation for success or achievement of individuals leads them to set levels of aspiration that do not guarantee easy success. This line of inquiry has been the springboard for much of the current advanced theoretical work on social comparison processes, self-evaluation, and discrepancies between ideal self and actual self.[seeAchievement Motivation.]
The phenomena of decision making and conflict resolution were the focuses of another important series of investigations by Lewin and his students. These inquiries demonstrate the effect on decision making of the strength of the valences of the alternatives, the reality level of the choice situation, the difference in a choice between negative and positive alternatives, and attitudes of cautiousness and risk taking.
As Lewin’s interests changed from individual to social psychology, his approach to decision making and conflict also changed. His famous series of studies of group decision making (1953) demonstrates the influence on individual behavior of participation in group discussions and decisions. Group discussion affects such phenomena as parental behavior, eating habits, and amount of effort on the production line. Later work on patterns of intergroup conflict derived from this work on individual decision making.
As he moved into social psychology, Lewin’s research interests focused on the phenomena of social perception, social values, social influence, cooperation, and competition. In all these areas he instigated important research. His students demonstrated experimentally that the expectation or perception that another person is “warm” or “cold,” high or low in power, or an insider or outsider greatly influences interpersonal attitudes and behavior (Kelley 1950; Pepitone 1950; Thibaut & Riecken 1955).[seePerception, articles onPerson Perceptionand Socialperception.]
His move from Germany to the United States stimulated Lewin’s interest in the comparative analysis of personal values as they relate to cultural differences and social norms. Several of Lewin’s papers ([1935–1946] 1948, pp. 3-68) deal with the development of a definition of values and with approaches to change in cultural values. This was perhaps the beginning of his focus on the theory of planned change and social action, which became increasingly important in the later years of his career. His work on values moved from methodological work on the content of values (as developed in Kalhorn 1944; White 1951) to work on the development of the value of “fairness,” which he conducted by means of experimental situations with children of different ages, and then to an important series of studies on the development and functioning of group standards or group norms. The experimental field studies of the influence of group standards on work output in a factory (Coch & French 1948) and on behavior of residents in a housing project (Festinger et al. 1950) led to a basic theoretical paper in 1947 by Lewin (see in [1939–1947] 1963, pp. 188–237) on the quasi-stationary equilibrium as a tool for conceptual analysis of the field of forces determining behavior in a given social setting and situation. [seeMoral Development.]
Perhaps Lewin’s best-known contributions to social psychology and group dynamics are those focusing on authority and social influence. Initially, a series of children’s groups were studied to see what effect different styles of leadership might have on the social–emotional atmosphere of a group, on its work productivity, and on the personal adaptation of members. There followed basic work on social influence, with laboratory studies of status hierarchy and communications channels; field studies of behavioral contagion and influence structures; and studies of the patterns and bases of influence in military units and in the working relations among the members of professional teams, such as those composed of psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, or social workers. [seeLeadership.]
In the later years of his career, Lewin and his co-workers became interested in the problem of what they called psychological ecology. Thus, in his work on the maintenance and change of food habits (1943), Lewin constructed a theory of social channels and “gatekeepers” to account for the ecological processes by which particular foods reach the table and come in contact with the consumer. He showed that a number of cultural, economic, and technological factors combined to influence this series of decisions. This approach has been greatly developed and extended by Lewin’s student and co-worker Barker, in his series of field studies of the psychological ecology of children and adults in a number of communities and a variety of social settings (Barker & Wright 1954).
Major concepts . In all his work, Lewin maintained an active interplay between the construction of theory and the concrete analysis of human behavior in all its complexity. It is possible here to indicate only briefly some of the concepts that became important in Lewin’s comprehensive conceptual system. Probably the most widely known Lewinian concept is that of psychological life space. This fundamental notion refers to the totality of events or facts that determines the behavior of an individual at a given time. It is related to the basic tenet that causation is a contemporary process, and it has, therefore, created much active controversy in the field of psychotherapy. Defending the importance of this concept, one psychoanalyst (Ezriel 1956, p. 32) has asserted that the unconscious structures the analyst uncovers in working with a patient are active in the present and are not necessarily replicas of past realities and reactions.
The life space includes two major components: the person and the psychological environment. The latter is conceived to be the environment as it exists for the individual. Lewin assumed that an understanding of the interaction between the person and the psychological environment would permit the understanding and prediction of the person’s behavior.
The concepts that Lewin developed to deal with the psychological and social processes of the life space can be classified as structural concepts, having to do with the arrangement and relationship of the parts of the life space, and dynamic concepts, dealing with tendencies toward change or resisting change. The basic structures of the life space are region and boundary, and derived from these are degree of differentiation, centrality, path, and psychological distance. The principal dynamic processes are interdependence, tension, force, field of forces, equilibrium, and power. Lewin also introduced two dimensions of the life space: a vertical dimension of degrees or levels of reality and a horizontal dimension of time perspective. Lewin’s studies demonstrated that psychological processes vary with different levels of reality: the processes involved in assessing facts or expectations are different from those involved in fantasies or wishes. The use of the concept of time perspective was related to Lewin’s field-theoretical stress on the interpretation and prediction of behavior in ahistorical terms.
When he first made contributions to social psychology, Lewin was content to treat the facts of interpersonal relations as social facts in the life space of each individual. For example, the fact of group membership and its implications for behavior then seemed quite satisfactorily represented as regions in the life space of the person. But as he added such new problems as group goals, group decision making, and group problem solving, it became necessary to relate life spaces to one another, that is, to construct a social space or a social field in which social, economic, political, and physical facts have objective, or at least inter-subjective, reality, rather than only individual psychological reality. In some of his final papers ([1939–1947] 1963, pp. 170–237), Lewin was beginning to grapple with the challenging problems of defining social space and social field-theory and of relating these concepts to those of psychological space. He was indicating some of the ways in which the behavioral sciences might go beyond empirical unity to the achievement of conceptual unity.
Social action and social problem solving . Lewin had a deep sensitivity to social problems and a commitment to use his resources as a social scientist to do something about them. Thus, in the early 1940s, he drew a triangle to represent the interdependence of research, training (or education), and action in producing social change. He saw every practical problem as requiring basic conceptual analysis, research, and a “change experiment.” The concept of action-research as a method of planned social change was developed and clarified in the period when he was helping found the Commission on Community Interrelations of the American Jewish Congress and establishing the Research Center for Group Dynamics at MIT.
Lewin may well have been a bit optimistic when he asserted in 1945 that “leading practitioners” in government, agriculture, industry, education, and community life seemed to have an increasing awareness of the need for a “scientific level of understanding” and that they seemed to accept the dictum that “nothing is as practical as a good theory.” Yet the success of the National Training Laboratories, which he helped establish in 1946 and 1947, does seem to vindicate his optimism. First held at Bethel, Maine, the summer after Lewin’s death, these sessions have since expanded into a nationwide network serving the needs of professional men. They provide a link between these professional men and the resources of the behavioral sciences and the growing technology of re-education of attitudes, values, and behavior.
Persisting influence . Current research directly derived from Lewin’s work is being carried on by Cartwright and his colleagues, who are working on the development and use of mathematical concepts that are coordinated with life-space phenomena; at the Research Center for Group Dynamics at the University of Michigan (it was founded by Lewin at MIT and moved to Michigan after his death) and at university centers founded by some of his students, for example, by Festinger, Schachter, Deutsch, Thibaut, and Kelley; by Barker and his colleagues, working on psychological ecology; by French, Bavelas, Marrow, Cook, and others, who are coordinating organizational field experiments; and by Lippitt and his colleagues at the Center for Research on Utilization of Scientific Knowledge, the title of which is a key to its activities.
Ronald Lippitt
[See alsoField Theory. Other relevant material may be found inDevelopmental Psychology; Gestalt Theory; Groups; Systems Analysis, article onPsychological Systems; Thinking, article onCognitive Organization AND Processes.]
WORKS BY LEWIN
1917 Die psychische Tatigkeit bei der Hemmung von Willensvorgangen und das Grundgesetz der Assoziation. Zeitschrift fur Psychologic 77:212-247.
(1935-1946) 1948 Resolving Social Conflicts: Selected Papers on Group Dynamics. New York: Harper.
1936 Principles of Topological Psychology. New York: McGraw-Hill.
(1939-1947) 1963 Field Theory in Social Science: Selected Theoretical Papers. Edited by Dorwin Cart-wright. London: Tavistock.
1941 Barker, Roger; Dembo, Tamara; and Lewin, KurtFrustration and Regression: An Experiment With Young Children. University of Iowa Studies in Child Welfare, vol. 18, no. 1. Iowa City: Univ. of Iowa Press.
1943 Forces Behind Food Habits and Methods of Change. National Research Council,Bulletin 108:35-65.
(1945) 1948 Lewin, Kurt; and Grabbe, Paul Conduct, Knowledge, and Acceptance of New Values. Pages 56–68 in Kurt Lewin, Resolving Social Conflicts: Selected Papers on Group Dynamics. New York: Harper. ? First published in Volume 1 of the Journal of Social Issues.
1953 Studies in Group Decision. Pages 287–301 in Dorwin Cartwright and Alvin Zander (editors), Group Dynamics: Research and Theory. Evanston, 111.: Row, Peterson. ? Selections from writings first published between 1943 and 1947.
SUPPLEMENTARY BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ach, N. 1910 Über den Willensakt und das Temperament: Eine experimented Untersuchung. Leipzig: Quelle & Meyer.
Adler, D. L. 1939 Types of Similarity and the Substitute Value of Activities at Different Age Levels. Ph.D. dissertation, State Univ. of Iowa.
Barker, Roger G.; and Wright, Herbert F. 1954 Mid-west and Its Children. Evanston, 111.: Row, Peterson.
Cartwright, Dorwin 1942 The Effect of Interruption, Completion and Failure Upon the Attractiveness of Activities. Journal of Experimental Psychology 31: 1-16.
Cartwright, Dorwin 1959 Lewinian Theory as a Contemporary Systematic Framework. Volume 2, pages 7–91 in Sigmund Koch (editor), Psychology: The Study of a Science. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Coch, Lester; and French, John R. P. Jr. 1948 Overcoming Resistance to Change. Human Relations 1: 512-532.
Dembo, Tamara 1931 Der Ärger als dynamisches Problem. Untersuchungen zur Handlungs- und Affektpsychologie, 10. Psychologische Forschung 15:1-144.
Deutsch, Morton 1954 Field Theory in Social Psychology. Pages 181–222 in Gardner Lindzey (editor), Handbook of Social Psychology, Volume 1: Theory and Method. Cambridge, Mass.: Addison-Wesley.
Escalona, Sibylle 1954 The Influence of Topological and Vector Psychology Upon Current Research in Child Development: An Addendum. Pages 971–983 in Leonard Carmichael (editor), Manual of Child Psychology. 2d ed. New York: Wiley.
Ezriel, H. 1956 Experimentation Within the Psychoanalytic Session. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 7:29-48.
Festinger, Leon; Schachter, Stanley; and Back, Kurt (1950) 1963 Social Pressures in Informal Groups: A Study of Human Factors in Housing. Stanford Univ. Press.
Frank, Jerome D. 1935 a Individual Differences in Certain Aspects of the Level of Aspiration.American Journal of Psychology 47:119-128.
Frank, Jerome D. 1935 b The Influence of the Level of Performance in One Task on the Level of Aspiration in Another. Journal of Experimental Psychology 18: 159-171.
Freund, Alex 1930 Psychische Sattigung im Menstruum und Intermenstruum. Untersuchungen zur Hand-lungs- und Affektpsychologie, 7. Psychologische Forschung 13:198-217.
Hoppe, Ferdinand 1931 Erfolg und Misserfolg. Untersuchungen zur Handlungs- und Affektpsychologie, 9. Psychologische Forschung 14:1-62.
Kalhorn, Joan 1944 Values and Sources of Authority Among Rural Children. Pages 99–152 in Kurt Lewin et. al., Authority and Frustration. University of Iowa Studies in Child Welfare, vol. 20. Iowa City: Univ. of Iowa Press.
Karsten, Anitra 1928 Psychische Sattigung. Untersuchungen zur Handlungs- und Affektpsychologie, 5. Psychologische Forschung 10:142-254.
Kelley, Harold H. 1950 The Warm–Cold Variable in First Impressions of Persons. Journal of Personality 18:431-439.
Kounin, Jacob S. 1941 Experimental Studies of Rigidity: 1-2. Character and Personality 9:251-282. ? Part 1: The Measurement of Rigidity in Normal and Feeble-minded Persons. Part 2: The Explanatory Power of the Concept of Rigidity as Applied to Feeblemindedness.
Leeper, Robert W. 1943 Lewin’s Topological and Vector Psychology: A Digest and a Critique. Eugene: Univ. of Oregon.
Lissner, Kate 1933 Die Entspannung von Bediirfnissen durch Ersatzhandlungen. Untersuchungen zur Handlungs- und Affektpsychologie, 18. Psychologische Forschung 18:218-250.
Mahler, Wera 1933 Ersatzhandlungen verschiedenen Realitätsgrades. Untersuchungen zur Handlungs- und Affektpsychologie, 15. Psychologische Forschung 18: 27-89.
Ovsiankina, Maria VON 1928 Die Wiederaufnahme unterbrochener Handlungen. Untersuchungen zur Handlungs- und Affektpsychologie, 6. Psychologische Forschung 11:302-379.
Pepitone, Albert 1950 Motivational Effects in Social Perception. Human Relations 3:57-76.
Seashore, Harold C.; and Bavelas, Alex 1942 A Study of Frustration in Children. Pedagogical Seminary and Journal of Genetic Psychology 61:279-314.
Sliosberg, Sarah 1934 Zur Dynamik des Ersatzes in Spiel- und Ernstsituationen. Untersuchungen zur Handlungs- und Affektpsychologie, 19. Psychologische Forschung 19:122-181.
Thibaut, John W.; and Riecken, Henry W. 1955 Some Determinants and Consequences of the Perception of Social Causality. Journal of Personality 24:113-133.
White, Ralph K. 1951 Value-analysis: The Nature and Use of the Method. Glen Gardner, N.J.: Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues.
Wright, M. Erik 1942 Constructiveness of Play as Affected by Group Organization and Frustration. Character and Personality 11:40-49.
Zeigarnik, Bluma 1927 Das Behalten erledigter und unerledigter Handlungen. Untersuchungen zur Hand-lungs- und Affektpsychologie, 3. Psychologische Forschung 9:1-85.