The Practical Theorist - The Life and Work of Kurt Lewin (PDFDrive)
The Practical Theorist - The Life and Work of Kurt Lewin (PDFDrive)
The Practical Theorist - The Life and Work of Kurt Lewin (PDFDrive)
THI IE
PRACliiCAL
THIEOR~ST
The Life and Work of
I(URT LEWIN
BY
Alfred J. &farrow
Alfred /. Marrow
New York
July 1969
XV
Acknowledgments
XVlll
Acknowledgments
XIX
Contents
PART I
PART I I
Publications-•945-1950 277
Index 285
XXll
A group of photographs appears following page 140.
IPA 1ftll I
The German Years
CHAPTER
BEGINNINGS
The psychologist finds himself in the midst of a rich
and vast land full of strange happenings: there are men
killing themselves; a child playing; a child forming his
lips trying to say his first word; a person who, having
fallen in love and being caught in an unhappy situa-
tion, is not willing or not able to find a way out; there
is the mystical state called hypnosis, where the will of
one person seems to govern anotber person; there is
the reaching out for higher and more difficult goals;
loyalty to a group; dreaming; planning; exploring tbe
world; and so on witbout end. It is an innneme con-
tinent full of fascination and power and full of
stretches of la11d where no one ever has set foot.
Psycbology is out to conquer tbis continent, to find
out where its treasures are bidde11, to investigate its
danger spots, to master its vast forces, and to utilize
its energies.
How can one reacb this goal? 1
Kurt Lewin, who wrote these challenging words, was born in the
tiny village of Mogilno in the Prussian province of Posen, now part
of Poland, on what he used to describe as "the ninth nine of ninety"
-September 9, 1 890. His father, Leopold, owned and operated a
general store; the family lived above it. A few miles from Mogilno,
he also owned a small farm, which his son Kurt loved. As a small-
1 Kurt Lewin, "Formalization and Progress in Psychologr,'' Uuh.Jersity of Iowa
Swdies iu Cbild lVelfare, 1940, 16, No.3·
THE GERMAN YEARS
town boy, free to wander in grassy fields and pine forests, Kurt
developed a feeling for nature. He liked gardening, became handy
with tools, and developed great skill in woodwork and mechanics.
The boy looked very much like his father, but in temperament
seems to have been more like his mother, Recha. She was filled with
energy and drive and nurtured high aspirations for her four chil-
dren, whom she raised while she worked in the family store. Hertha
was the eldest; then came three sons, Kurt, Egan, and Fritz. The
mother, articulate and warmhearted, was always busy. Leopold ran
the shop and took a hand in community affairs, serving for a time as
president of the Mogilno synagogue. In this close and affectionate
family, Fritz, who was tall, athletic, and high-spirited and excelled
at sports, often came home late, but, no matter what the hour, his
mother was always waiting for him. Her patience made a deep im-
pression on Kurt, who also was frequently tardy. Kurt's wife, Ger-
trud, thinks that he measured the depth of a woman's love or a
friend's affection by their willingness to accept his habitual tardi-
ness.
The Lewins, a thrifty, middle-class family, were fairly comfort-
able. Their social life centered on family, relatives, and neighbors.
Their circle also included the families of coreligionists from neigh-
boring towns, for in the Germany of Kaiser Wilhelm II, all Jews
were subjected to overt, publicly approved discrimination. In the
small towns of eastern Prussia, the landed aristocracy and the army
officers' corps constituted the top social level. Members of these
groups shunned all social contact with Jews, though they were will-
ing to do business with them. Few Jews, even though they might
meet the educational requirements, could aspire to a responsible
post in Germany's civil service or to a commission in the Kaiser's
peacetime army. Thus, anti-Semitism was a fact of life with which
Jewish children became familiar early, both at school and in the
community. Since Prussian law required that every child receive
religious instruction during the elementary-school years, Kurt and
his brothers attended Jewish religious classes. At the age of thirteen,
each went through the Hebrew Bar Mitzvah ritual. But this Jewish
involvement did not inhibit the family's celebration of Christmas.
4
Beginnings
They exchanged gifts and looked upon the holiday as a festive occa-
sion.
The Lewins wanted their children to have the best possible edu-
cation, and they realized that Mogilno's limited facilities could not
provide proper schooling. Hence, while he was still in elementary
school, Kurt was sent to board with a family in Posen, the provin-
cial capital. Then, in I905, the family moved to Berlin, where fif-
teen-year-old Kurt was enrolled in the Kaiserin Augusta Gymna-
sium. In elementary school Kurt had not been an outstanding pupil.
Though not a difficult child, he had displayed occasional temper
tantrums and his family nicknamed him the "Furious Herring." His
high intelligence was not even suspected until his last two years of
high school. In I 907 he was introduced to Greek philosophy and
fell in love with it. It was a love that lasted all his life. During this
same period his scholastic record improved remarkably.
At this time in Germany there were three different types of gym-
nasia: the oldest (of which the Kaiserin Augusta was an example)
was of the humanistic type and stressed the study of the classics-
epecially Latin and Greek-with some mathematics, and very little
science. The two other types, though they also laid less stress on the
classics, offered more instruction in science. When Kurt entered the
gymnasium in I 90 5, Berlin was not only an elegant imperial city but
also the capital of German scholarship and a world center of scien-
tific achievement. The universities were organized around the origi-
nal "four faculties" of the medieval period-theology, jurisprudence,
medicine, and philosophy-and any subject that could not be
assigned to one of the first three was classified as philosophy. Thus
all the natural sciences, the social sciences, the liberal arts, and the
humanities came under the faculty of philosophy. It was therefore
possible and customary for students to shift at will from the sciences·
to the arts and from the arts to the sciences. Psychology was still
taught as a division of philosophy, as, indeed, it was in many Ameri-
can universities even years later.
In April r 909, Kurt, after completing his term at the gymnasium,
entered the University of Freiburg, planning to study medicine and
become a country doctor. Apparently he found the anatomy
5
THE GERMAN YEARS
7
THE GERMAN YEARS
8
Beginnings
9
CHAPTER
2
FIRST CONCEPTS
After Lewin had completed the requirements for his degree in the
early summer of I9I4, he volunteered for army service. World War
I broke out very soon after, and he served in the army for most of
the bitter four years of fighting. (The degree was conferred on him
in I9I6.) He entered the army a private and left it a lieutenant with
an Iron Cross. Despite his background as an intellectual, Lewin
adapted very well to being a soldier. Forced to make long marches
on foot, he learned the infantryman's trick of sleeping standing up-
even when walking or marching. He spoke of this with amusement
in later years and occasionally used this skill again.
The years I 9 I 4-I 9 I 7 comprised the period of victorious advance
for the Kaiser's army, but the great spring offensive of I9I8, which
was intended to be the final push, floundered by midsummer on the
banks of the Marne. Lewin had, in the interval, been wounded and
hospitalized. (His youngest brother, Fritz, had been killed in action.)
On furlough as a convalescent, Lewin filled the time with consid-
erable thinking and some writing. Although strongly antimilitarist
and deeply opposed to German nationalism, he had not found the
war experience entirely unbearable. Being the kind of person he
was, Lewin developed an interest in some of his duties and occasion-
ally even found a chance for fun or at least an escape from military
boredom. What saved him from the monotony, horror, and despair
of four years in the trenches of World War I was his unquenchable
10
First Concepts
I 1
THE GERJ\IAN YEARS
In another paper8 published the same year and based on his disser-
tation, Lewin expressed his growing belief that motives have much
to do with association; indeed, he set motive over against the fre-
quency and contiguity to which the force. of association was attrib-
uted at that time. He wrote that his work in psychology "began
before World War I with experiments on association" and then
went on to explain that his "intention was not to criticize associa-
tionism but rather to refine the measurement of the 'strength of the
will' "-as developed by Asch, whose work at that time was the most
theoretically precise in the field. But after three years of experiment-
ing with nonsense syllables and reaction times split to one thou-
sandth of a second, Lewin came to a stop. He felt there was no point
in trying further to improve the exactness of the measure. He was
also convinced that "association" alone could not account for the
phenomena under observation and that there was need for a new
explanation and a major modification in theory.
For Lewin, the year 1917 was memorable for something other
than the publication of the two papers. While on furlough, he
married Maria Landsberg, a close friend of Hedda Korsch. Maria
was a teacher of German and English in one of the new high schools
for girls established in 19 r 2. Considered outstanding in the class-
room, she continued teaching, with brief interruptions, after her
marriage. Lewin and his bride lived first in an apartment in the
Berlin suburb of Charlottenburg. Around 1922, they bought a
house in a development near T empelhof Airport. The area was an
oasis of small, moderately priced single homes, surrounded by the
big city. Kurt's sister, Hertha, and her family, as well as Karl and
Hedda Korsch, also bought homes in the same suburb. Their chil-
dren-the Lewins' daughter, Agnes, was born in 1919 and a son,
Fritz, in 1922-were all about the same age. This, and the circum-
stance that all three families lived within easy walking distance,
made for close and frequent social contact.
The Lewins had begun their marriage in the period of civil and
economic turmoil experienced throughout Germany after World
s Kurt Lewin, "Die psychische Tatigkeit bei der Hemmung von Willensorgan-
gen und das Grundgesetz der Assoziation," Zeitscbrift fiir Psycl•ologie, 1917.
12
First Concepts
War I. The Kaiser abdicated, and, as the armistice went into effect,
the German parliament met in Weimar to consider what to do. The
stress and strain of political instability were in evidence everywhere.
Inflation soon made German money worthless. But though life in
Berlin, as elsewhere, was troubled and insecure in the early I 92o's,
the University tried to carry on. At the old Imperial Palace, which
now housed a part of the University, a number of rooms had been
assigned to the Psychological Institute, and it was here that Lewin
came after being demobilized.
It was-despite the precarious political and economic situation-
an exciting period for all intellectuals and especially so for Lewin,
for whom the years at the Psychological Institute marked the begin-
ning of his productivity and saw the laying of the foundations of his
theoretical concepts and experimental methods. At the Institute,
where Kohler and Wertheimer were breaking new ground in psy-
chology in the formulation of their Gestalt theory, Lewin found an
exciting setting for his own work. It seemed to him that Kohler and
Wertheimer were opening doors too long held closed by the older
revered figures of German psychology.
Against the traditional mosaic conception of phenomena as
aggregates of distinct parts, the Gestaltists argued that perception
could and should be considered in terms of "forms of organized
wholes., The wholes, they maintained, are different from merely
sums of their parts; they take on an added characteristic or quality;
they are entities with distinctive structures-changeable, to be sure,
by any change in any part, but, although changing, definitely rec-
ognizable wholes, or Gestalts. Thus, the "solidity, of a brick wall
was something more than the sum of the bricks in it. All mental
experiences are patterned in this way; they take on a new aspect
which depends on how they are "organized., Such organization·
precedes and influences the experiences.
This Gestalt holism impressed Lewin. Though he was never a
completely orthodox Gestaltist, he did become a vital force in the
new movement and contributed to it his own special insights. To
Lewin, Gestaltism seemed closer to actual experience than did
piecemeal analysis, which had prevailed in psychology during his
IJ
THE GERMAN YEARS
ing the workday is not enough. The work itself must be made
worth doing, no matter how long or short the task.
It is essential to recognize, Lewin declared, that the enriching and
humanizing of work depends not only on the kind of work to be
done but also on how far the job fulfills the laborer's psychological
needs. From the point of view of production, it had been customary
to measure work by an "objective" yardstick of cost and quantity
turned out. For the worker, however, the more significant factors
are the value he places on what he is doing and the satisfaction he
derives from it. These in turn are major factors in determining how
well the employee performs on the assembly line or at the work-
bench.
Production engineers' demand for the highest output at the low-
est cost disregards the function of "job satisfaction." Few "effi-
ciency experts" recognize that assigning people to the jobs they like
best-and thus perform best-is also a great aid to increased skill.
Recognition of a person's right to choose a job that he prefers,
Lewin felt, can have a tremendously liberating effect on human
effort.
Could psychology contribute to this liberation through its studies
of work and the relation of individuals to the job they want most to
do? Could psychological findings about people be used to balance
the rival interests of employer and employee, foreman and worker,
management and factory hand? Lewin believed that an affirmative
answer to both questions was a possibility. If the psychologist can
win the cooperation of both parties, workers and employers to-
gether might learn how to enhance the "life values" of work with-
out hampering the smooth flow of production. For example, diffi-
cult jobs could be studied with a view either to making them less
disagreeable, distributing them among a greater number of workers,
or to offering those performing them some special compensation.
Whatever the device ultimately found, its use could bring greater
interest and enthusiasm on the part of the worker and, with it,
higher output.
Lewin summed up his views by stressing that man does not live to
produce but produces to live. Improving the psychological compo-
16
First Concepts
nents of man's work will thus accomplish far more for the worker's
well-being than merely cutting down his hours on the job. What is
important, what must always be sought, is an improvement in the
inner value of the work as experienced by the man performing it.
In the Classroom
The psychologist Lewin continued to be intertwined with the phi-
losopher Lewin throughout these years. "He never abandoned phi-
losophy," says Gertrud Lewin. "In Berlin he lectured one year in
psychology and had a seminar in philosophy; the next year he had a
lecture in philosophy and a seminar in psychology." He taught
these courses as a privatdozent, or lecturer (he was appointed in
1921)-a position which was the first stage in a university teacher's
career and which carried neither salary nor tenure. To qualify for
appointment as a full member of the faculty, it was (and still is)
necessary for a candidate to submit a H abilitationsschrift-a report
on a research project beyond the doctoral dissertation which must
be presented before the faculty in a formal lecture-and he must also
be approved by vote of the full professorship of the faculty. The
privatdozent did not enjoy the status of beamter, or state civil serv-
ant. He was dependent for his income on his share of student fees. If
his lectures were well attended, his income rose; but it was never
large, no matter how popular he might be; and, in Prussia, Jewish
privatdozents did not rise to the position of full professor.
To Horace Kallen, the American philosopher who first met
Lewin at a meeting of the International Psychological Society in
Holland in 192 5, there seemed to be a fundamental difference in
outlook between Lewin, who was a "psychologist first and coinci-'
dentally a philosopher of the mind," and Kohler, Koffka, and Wert-
heimer, who were "really philosophers first and psychologists
afterwards." However, Fritz Heider feels there was no real differ-
ence between Lewin and the others in this respect. To him Lewin
remained a philosopher at heart despite the turn his interests took
later.
17
THE GERMAN YEARS
18
First Concepts
Lewin argued that "the concept of genidentity as used in physics
is different from that used in biology." Let us consider an egg and
the two-year-old chicken hatched from this egg. Egg and chicken
are biologically genidentical; they represent different stages of de-
velopment of the same biological matter. However, physically they
are not genidentical, for the molecules composing them have
changed. In the same way, a person at the age of forty is biologically
identified with the same person at the age of twenty, though physi-
cally only a small number of molecules may be the same. He may
have changed as a biological entity; but the fact that we can speak
of a change means that we refer to the same organism.
Thus Lewin tried to show that physics and biology are essentially
different in the basic units of description they use. This led him to
assert that a fundamental incommensurability separates the sciences
from one another: each science is a closed unit of systematically
connected concepts. Paths of derivation lead along the lines of this
network, but we cannot use the propositions or laws of one science
for those of another. Going from one science to another means to
change completely the way of dividing up reality into units.
Lewin expanded on this theme in his lectures and writings. He
believed that development of the sciences only leads to a sharpening
of the differences between them. Each science gradually purifies its
concepts and segregates itself more and more from its neighbors. In
line with these ideas, Lewin cautioned that our desire for meaning
and unity of life must not lead us to look for an illusory satisfaction
in the idea of a philosophical unity of science. The idea of an even-
tual unification of all sciences is wishful thinking. Of course, there
are many bridges between the sciences, and we should be seeking
more of them-for instance, in intermediate fields such as biochemis-
try and physiological psychology. But psychology should strive to
build up a more or less autonomous realm of concepts and form a
closely knit system. As psychology grows, it should become more
aware of its own proper nature and should separate itself from other
sciences such as physiology. Psychology should in this way purify
itself.
19
CHAPTER
3
LEWIN
AS TEACHER
and a way of life that required precise answers, for Lewin would
never accept an answer that was just good enough. So he always had
time to talk about one's work and our answers were refined through
the discussion."
In his classes, Lewin encouraged each member of the group to
present a formulation of personal observations and theories for criti-
cism in general discussion. Surprisingly-or perhaps not so surpris-
ingly, since Lewin thought like a mathematician-the formulations
which finally emerged had precision. Like a mathematician, too,
Lewin liked to employ visual symbols; he was always at the black-
board. Some students disliked his strange drawings, contending that
they were unscientific. Others regarded them as part of his effort to
communicate entirely new approaches to new concepts.
"Time after time," says Dr. Vera Mahler, who also became one
of Lewin's students in 1924, "he would interrupt his lecture about
some aspect of child psychology, for example, and begin to draw
funny little 'eggs' on the blackboard. These he called the 'total psy-
chological field' or 'life space' of the child's world. These little ovals
would in turn contain smaller circles representing the child himself,
and containing plus and minus signs; arrows would appear to indi-
cate the direction of the various field forces; thick lines represented
the barriers. Quickly we were in the midst of a conflict in the child's
life, or a situation representing reward and punishment. All this was
graphic, all was made clear, in Lewin's little drawings on the black-
board."
Years later, in his Principles of Topological Psychology (1936),
Lewin stated, "I remember the moment when-more than ten years
ago-it occurred to me that the figures on the blackboard which
were to illustrate some problems for a group in psychology might
after all be not merely illustrations but representations of real con-
cepts."
"Lewin was something new and refreshing after the conventional
lectures on child psychology we were used to," Dr. Mahler remarks,
"even though Lewin's concepts sometimes gave us the impression
of too much novelty. But the longer we studied with him, the clear-
er it became that here was something not merely novel but a sound
22
Lewin as Teacher
approach to the psychological development of the child that had to
be taken quite seriously."
Dr. Mahler's first impression of Lewin, already in his thirties, was
of a young man with apple-red cheek~ who seemed more like a
student than a professor: "At the start we were not greatly im-
pressed with his lecturing, for Lewin was in no way a polished or
outstanding speaker and we had been spoiled by the brilliant lec-
tures of Kohler and others." But his indifferent skill with words was
forgotten by the students once Lewin started to expound his ideas.
"We would sit in our seats in the classroom completely absorbed, as
Lewin began to develop his train of thought. I shouldn't say he
lectured-he really didn't in a conventional, well-organized manner.
He was often creating as he was speaking. Frequently he paused in
mid-sentence and seemed to forget his audience. Thinking aloud, he
vented the new ideas pouring quickly into his mind."
At times, Lewin seemed too ready with new ideas, as new ones
followed earlier ones rapidly and were too abruptly displaced by
yet newer ones. Dr. Mahler once complained to him, "How can we
find our way when you keep coming up with new ideas that some-
times contradict the old ones we haven't yet thoroughly under-
stood?" Lewin smiled, and replied, "That's what science is all about.
Science means progress, and progress means change. True science
doesn't admit to stagnation. Everlasting change-that's the essence
of science."
To Carl Frankenstein, who-like the young women students
from the Baltic states-studied at the Psychological Institute be-
tween 192 3 and 1926, the seeds of Lewin's greatness as a thinker and
teacher were not as evident. Lewin, he recalls, apparently made no
effort to compete with the Institute's two stars, Kohler and Wert-
heimer. Nevertheless, according to Frankenstein, the students found
him a highly stimulating scientific counselor when they were
planning a piece of research, and, though he was known to make
heavy demands on them, they felt he had more empathy with his
students than did either Wertheimer or Kohler. Too independent in
his thinking to become anyone else's disciple, Lewin still seemed to
Frankenstein, and some of his friends, to be a "Wertheimer man"-
THE GERMAN YEARS
L1l
If
TENSION SYSTEMS
AND
FIELD THEORY
30
Tension Systems and Field Theory
when there is a need or want. It is their striving for dischgrge that
supplies the energy for, and is consequently the cause of, all mental
activity. The forces which Lewin postulated are in the psychic field,
not the physical. Thus, to understand or predict behavior, one
must deal with psychic tensions operating in a psychic field.
Again, the word "tension" as used by Lewin means a state of
readiness or a preparation for action. For every mental event, the
question arises, "Where do the causative energies originate?" Lewin
suggested that the source of energy is not to be found in the stimu-
lus or in the momentary perception. These may function to direct
or control the energy resulting from the tension, bqt the energy
which sustains a given psychic sequence does not derive from the
perceptual process.
The stimulus, however, may cause any one of the following: (a)
The development of a tension which did not previously exist. Psy-
chologically, this manifests itself as an intention or desire which had
not been present before. (b) The attachment of an already existing
tension (due possibly to a need, purpose, or half-finished activity)
to a specific object in such a way that this tension system gains
control over the motor system. Such an object would then possess
a "valence," which would function as a field force guiding and
steering mental processes and behavior. The stimulus itself has
no fixed valence. It may be positive on one occasion and nega-
tive on another, depending most directly on the momentary state
of the needs of the person. (c) The reduction of tension to a
lower level when satiation processes occur or the desired goals are
achieved.
Lewin offered as an illustration the example of a child at play who
suddenly discovers a ball at the bottom of a hole too deep for him to
reach. The perception of the ball creates a tension with a positive
valence. The behavior of the child becomes limited to such actions
as may bring his attainment of the ball nearer. He makes numerous
attempts to reach it. Unsuccessful, he obtains a long stick but still
cannot get the ball out of the hole. Finally, he calls to an adult, who
recovers it for him. The goal reached, the child's tension is released.
He perceives some other toy, and the process starts over again. The
3I
THE GERMAN YEARS
totality of the field forces resulting from the positive and negative
valences of the objects in the field, exerting influences of an attrac-
tive or repulsive nature, steer the child's behavior to particular goals.
Some of the objects in the field may act as barriers; they compel a
"detour" and cause a seeking for attainment in some other direction.
But once a goal has been achieved, there is a lessening of the tension
and a re-establishment of equilibrium.
Lewin's concept of "tension" was not consonant with the then
popular association theory, which Lewin judged inadequate. It
maintained that the performance of an act should strengthen the
tendency to repeat it. When, however, on seeing a mailbox, one
fulfills his intention to put a letter in it, there is no tendency to
repeat the act of depositing the letter when another mailbox is
encountered. The association theory simply does not apply in this
illustration and in various other circumstances, and we must look
for another explanation.
In Lewin's postulate, the existing tension, set up by the purpose of
mailing the letter, was a causal factor that led to depositing the
letter. The perception of the first mailbox set up an external field
force and steered the individual to the posting of the letter. With
the posting, the tension was released. In the absence of this neces-
sary energetic factor, the passing of other mailboxes, or even the
same one at a later time, evokes no impulse toward repetition. Or if,
after writing the letter, one has given it to someone else to send off,
there is again no impulse upon seeing the mailbox to drop the letter
in it, since the tensions which are essential determinants of the action
have already been discharged.
Thus Lewin developed a number of theoretical assumptions by
equating the "release of tension" to a "satisfaction of a need," and
the "setting up of tension" to an "intention." The sources of the
energy of tension are to be found in a person's genuine needs and
quasi-needs. The genuine needs are more fundamental and are due
to an inner state, generally physiological, such as hunger or thirst.
The quasi-needs are those involving a purpose or intention, such as
completing a task, keeping an appointment, or wanting to eat in a
particular restaurant. The quasi-needs occur much more frequently
Tension Systems and Field Theory
than the genuine and are much less stable. With them, substitute
satisfactions may re-establish equilibrium more readily than when
the tensions are genuine needs.
Whether or not there are physiological correlates was immaterial
in Lewin's view. It was not necessary to delay psychological experi-
mentation until science arrived at a better knowledge of the nervous
system. The important dynamic concepts were energy, tension,
need, valence, and vector (force).
Qualitatively, the tension back of the quasi-need is identical with
that behind a genuine need. In the same way, the fulfillment of
either need leads to the release of the tension and the restoration of
equilibrium. There is relative isolation between tense psychical sys-
tems. Each such system tends as a whole toward regaining its own
state of equilibrium, although partial processes may at the same time
proceed in opposite directions.
Commonly, there exists a certain firmness or rigidity of bounda-
ries in each system, so that it is possible for each to persist in its state
of directed tension over long periods, relatively uninfluenced by
other systems and influencing these other systems only slightly.
This is especially true in adults, in whom many separate tension
systems generally exist, each requiring its specific mode of discharge
before equilibrium is reattained and each, at most, only incom-
pletely affected by the discharge of other coexistent tension systems.
It is these isolated tension systems, persisting for longer or shorter
periods, that form a person's reservoir of total energy for action. A
partially finished activity, for example, may remain as a relatively
independent tension system for a protracted period of time though
without apparent awareness of it. Yet if the appropriate situation
should arise, the tension would strongly reassert itself.
Lewin was not concerned with describing the many kinds of
needs that might exist in a person's psychological reality. To him a
need existed only when it upset equilibrium. Being thirsty or hot
becomes motivational only at the moment when it is disturbing a
person's inner state. Relief from the disturbance comes with action
which serves to bring the disturbed person within reach of an object
that can satisfy his need.
33
THE GERMAN YEARS
Not until .five or more years after his 1917 paper criticizing asso-
ciationism did Lewin's ".field theory" evolve further. With it came
the highly unorthodox representation of psychological relations by
means of topological and vector concepts. When asked what he
hoped to accomplish by this theory, Lewin responded that he
believed that only a .field theory could adequately explain behavior
in the realms of action, emotion, and personality.
Field theory had evolved in the physical sciences .fifty years earli-
er. Physicists had led in developing it there, after many became
suspicious of the method of analyzing phenomena into component
parts and then into irreducible elements. In their view, a new con-
cept was necessary to account for what occurs when a number of
forces interact. This kind of explanation necessitated a change from
thinking in terms of particles to thinking in terms of .fields of energy
in which forces are spread and which operate within a matrix. The
Gestalt psychologists in the early 192.o's had already begun to view
perceptual responses as distributions of energy in which similar .field
principles were operative. Lewin broadened their concept to in-
clude all the psychological activity in which the person is con-
fronted with psychological motion toward goals within defined
regions of life space.
Field theory postulates that a person's behavior is derived from a
totality of coexisting facts. The multitude of data from any event
provides a dynamic ".field" in which all facts are interdependent
with all others.
Behavior, as Lewin emphasized so often, is a function of the per-
son and his environment. Both person and environment are inter-
dependent variables. Lewin, thinking in mathematical terms, con-
verted his statement into the formula, B = f (p, e)-that is, behavior
is the function of person and environment. This formula is now
accepted everywhere.
According to Lewin, behavior of every kind-including wishing,
thinking, achieving, striving-is the product of a .field of interde-
pendent variables, a result of change in some state of a .field in a
given unit of time. The .field with which the psychologist must deal,
Lewin terms "life space." For each individual, the life space consists
34
Tension Systems and Field Theory
of the needs of the person and his psychological environment. All
psychological events occur within the life space; or, stated some-
what differently, the "life space is the total psychological environ-
ment which the person experiences subjectively."
Life space includes all facts which have existence for the person
and excludes those which do not. It embraces needs, goals, uncon-
scious influences, memories, beliefs, events of a political, economic,
and social nature, and anything else that might have direct effect on
behavior. The various factors in a given life space are to some
degree interdependent, and Lewin strongly maintains that only the
dynamic concepts of tension and force can deal with these sets of
interdependent facts. This is what led him to define psychological
needs as tension systems and their topological representation as vec-
tors to denote motion.
According to Lewin's field-theory concepts, behavior depends
neither on the past nor on the future, but on the present field in the
"here and now." The present field has a certain time depth that
includes both the reality and unreality level of the psychological
past (as postulated by the associationists and the psychoanalysts),
and the hopes for the psychological future that are defined by ex-
pectations, wishes, and dreams. Although these constitute part of
the dimensions of the life space existing at a given time, it is on the
psychological present that behavior chiefly depends. Lewin recog-
nized that this theory varied widely from the historic belief of some
psychologists that a future goal guides present behavior and from
the claim of classic associationism that the past influences present
behavior.
Lewin illustrates the need for mathematical representation by a
reference to the novelist who, in telling his story, analyzes the per-
sonality and behavior of each of his characters. The author gives
detailed information about relevant relationships with parents and
friends, together with vital data about education, occupation, aspi-
ration, and habits. He places all these data before the reader in their
specific interrelations so that he may realize each person as part of a
total situation. However, Lewin says, such descriptive terms are
often vague and words are ambiguous and easily misunderstood. It
35
THE GERMAN YEARS
Lewin was excited by the ideas that sprang from his observations
of behavior of everyday life. Every psychologist's task, he thought,
was somehow to state those observations of human conduct in a
precise, mathematical language suitable to a method by which the
observer could bring them into the laboratory and reliably measure
them.
Because he was philosophically sophisticated, and had a strong
sense of the history of his science, Lewin was little influenced by
such trends of this period as operationalism, neo-positivism, and
Hullian theory. To develop his divergent perspective was no small
achievement, for it required a confidence in his ideas of the history
of science which few other contemporary students of the subject
possessed. Moreover, Lewin's grounding in the philosophy of sci-
ence made it possible for him to recognize the fundamental role of
phenomenology, or immediate perception, in all of science. This
enabled him, as Donald Adams points out, to recognize clearly that
the beginning of scientific inquiry and the ultimate test of its out-
come was sontebody's experience, and that this called for the con-
ception of a dynamic quite independent of the physical one.
Various critics have commented that Lewin really did not use
much more than some of topology's basic notions. Yet, in the view
of many who worked with him, the use of these elementary con-
cepts was highly productive. Indeed, Fritz Heider believes that
Lewin's insistence that science creates a language in which every-
thing can be precisely expressed is one of his most significant contri-
butions to psychology. "If you want to express an idea clearly in
topological terms," Heider has said, "you have to know what you
are talking about. Otherwise you get into trouble. This sort of to-
pology, then, is not just theory. It is a kind of language, something
that helps represent psychological relationships."
Norman Maier, who worked with Lewin in Berlin, has com-
mented: "I often felt that field theory was the product of communi-
cations by means of drawings, and it just so happened that each of
the disciples seemed to think in terms of drawings. The drawings
convinced me that Lewin and his students were trying to communi-
cate concepts that were entirely new, and they suggested the need
37
THE GERMAN YEARS
Non-Psyc&orog;caie Non-Psychological
(P + E =Life Space, L)
Thus the total space within the Jordan curve, including the ellipse,
is the life space. It represents the person and the psychological envi-
ronment. The space outside represents the non-psychological world
-of either physical or social facts. The Jordan curve, Lewin
pointed out, is a conceptual representation of reality which can
serve as a map to guide the psychologist.
39
CHAPTER
5
THE EXPERIMENTS
43
THE GERMAN YEARS
44
The Experiments
Jucknat studied 6so children and 52 adults.) Her conclusions bore
out Hoppe's findings on the factors that influence the choice of a
difficult or easy goal, with the further refinement that the kind of
success experienced also affected the aspiration level.
The work of Lewin's students in the uncharted area of level of
aspiration was an early indication of the implications of Lewinian
theory for social phenomena. Morton Deutsch has pointed out that
the factors that determine level of aspiration provide new insight
into the reasons for social apathy in the face of pressing political and
international problems. "People are not likely to attempt to seek
even highly valued objectives when they see no way of attaining
them," Deutsch has written. Similarly, he adds, level of aspiration
"sheds some light upon why social revolutions tend to occur only
after there has been a slight improvement in the situation of the
oppressed groups; the improvement raises their level of aspiration,
making goals which were once viewed as unattainable now per-
ceived as realistic possibilities."
Another major area of pioneering psychological research launched
by Lewin's students at Berlin was that of emotion. Tamara
Dembo chose anger for her experiment. She began her Forschung
article by pointing out that the emotions-although one of the most
vital of all areas of human concern-had been relatively unexplored,
whereas perception had been exhaustively studied since the turn of
the century. Even Freudian theory-the most important movement
toward the psychology of affect with non-experimental methods-
was still dominated by the principles and practices of association
psychology.
Dembo devoted special attention to the genesis of anger and to
why it was that frustrations in achieving one's aim or purpose
caused anger in some instances but not in others. Her point of de- ·
parture was Lewin's postulate that behavior is determined by the
structure and state of the person in his life space and by the psycho-
logical environment at that particular moment. In a series of experi-
ments remarkable in their originality (and their ability to provoke
her subjects' anger), Dembo showed that the emotional effect of a
felt need depended on the intensity (as opposed to the importance)
45
THE GERMAN YEARS
47
CHAPTER
6
GROWING RENOWN
49
THE GERMAN YEARS
Lewin pointed out that, in order to achieve her goal, the young
child had to turn around; but if she did, her movement had to take a
direction opposite to the field force. The positive valence toward
the stone was so strong that it was difficult for the child to move in a
direction contrary to the field force. So she made energetic but
unsuccessful movements toward the valence. As a child of only
eighteen months, she could not yet restructure the field so that she
could perceive a general movement away from the goal as merely
the first phase of a general movement toward the goal.
"The direction of the field forces," Lewin said, "plays an impor-
tant pan in intelligent behavior that has to do with detour prob-
lems." Little Hannah's difficulties resulted not from the length of
the detour but from confusion caused by the circumstance that the
initial direction of the appropriate route did not agree with that of
the vector of the valence. The more the barrier made it necessary
for Hannah to detour by starting off in a direction opposite to the
direction of the valence, the more difficult the detour would be.
By means of the film, Lewin also made clear what he meant by
forces in a field. Little Hannah had passed the stone many times
before without wanting to sit on it. When she finally did want to, it
wasn't because of the stone but because she was tired. The audience
was greatly impressed. "This ingenious film," said Gordon Allport,
"was decisive in forcing some American psychologists to revise their
own theories of the nature of intelligent behavior and of learning."
With his appearance at the Yale meeting, the impact of Brown's
articles, and the early Forschung series of reports, Lewin became a
world figure in psychology. Among those who read one of Brown's
papers in 192.9 was Donald MacKinnon, then at Harvard. Intrigued,
he went to hear Lewin talk at Yale. They did not meet at that time,
so
Growing Renown
but, having heard Lewin speak and having seen his film, MacKinnon
said later, "He was a genius at being able to follow children around
with his camera and get bits of behavior to illustrate the principles
he was already developing. And he came across as a terribly exciting
man-excited about what he was doing and about the presentation."
Maria Ovsiankina could have attested to this, too. She had been
responsible in Berlin for the processing of the film clips that Lewin
was constantly making. On one occasion, at the end of a busy day,
she finally cornered the tireless professor to show him the latest batch.
"There's nothing much here," she told him, but Lewin's comments
on the films brought forth a wealth of new material. Maria Ovsian-
kina and her fellow students in the projection room were astonished
at how much he had perceived that was new.
To many other American workers in the field whom he met at
Yale in 1929, Lewin was also impressive because he was propound-
ing a new psychology. Most psychologists had accepted the tradi-
tional notion of the hierarchy of the sciences-the idea that you
could describe psychological phenomena with psychological con-
cepts but that, if you wanted to explain them, you had to go down
the hierarchy of the sciences to something more basic. Thus, psy-
chological phenomena such as perception and behavior were to be
explained in terms of physiological and neurological concepts,
although this seemed to diminish, if not nullify, psychology itself as
a science. What Lewin proposed to do-and indeed was doing-was
to assert that psychological concepts could be scientifically ac-
counted for, as well as described, in purely psychological terms.
He was extraordinarily expressive: this was part of his charm, the
reason he stirred people so much. MacKinnon was "not sure how
much of his talk the Yale audience understood, for Lewin spoke in
German and few of his hearers had much fluency in that language;·
but if you just took the man and his behavior-the way in which he
was acting-it was quite clear that he was an original-an exciting
psychologist and a dynamic person to work with."
MacKinnon recalls that "as an undergraduate at Bowdoin I
thought I wanted to be a psychologist and took first-year psychol-
ogy. I was so disgusted with it that I said, 'If this is psychology, I
THE GERMAN YEARS
53
THE GERMAN YEARS
man teachers: "Each new idea or problem seemed to arouse him, and
he -was able to share his feeling with colleagues and juniors. He had
the energy to think at a high level continuously for many hours, or
struggle with a difficult problem even while he had a bad headache.
Seminars were held in his home, and it was hard to distinguish the
influence of his ideas from the influence of his personality.
"Because Lewin could be critical without hurting, he stimulated
creativity in all those about him. You could get into tremendous
battles with him over ideas, and he would never hesitate to show
you where he believed you were wrong. But neither was there ever
the slightest hint of any personal feeling about it, and if you came
up with a good idea a minute later, he'd be as pleased over it as you
were. He seemed to enjoy all kinds of human beings and, open and
free as he was, shared his ideas immediately-even if they were half
formed-eager for comments and reactions while the original· idea
was still being developed."
During his years at the Psychological Institute in Berlin, Lewin
had founded a whole new way of studying human beings-in his
demonstration of the extent to which perception and memory de-
pended on motivation, by his stress on seeking the causes for behav-
ior, by using the past as a way of understanding some of the factors
present in current interactions rather than as the primary causes of
behavior, and by his insistence that complex problems of human
interactions could be put in some kind of experimental framework
In 19z7, he was appointed Ausserordentlicher nicht beamteter
Professor (associate professor without civil service rank), essen-
tially an honorary promotion. This rank, which did not carry
tenure, was as high as most Jews could go in the Prussian academic
hierarchy, though it is possible that, had the Nazis not risen to pow-
er, Lewin might have been offered a "chair" of psychology at a
university in one of the other more liberal German states. The pro-
motion to Ausserordentlicher Professor was, however, a meaningful
acknowledgement to Lewin of the value of his work.
Though he was not one to dwell on the barriers to attaining a
higher rank, it did bother him, nevertheless. Doris Twitchell Allen,
who was living at the Lewin home at the time, remembers that he
5'4
Growing Renown
55
THE GERMAN YEARS
57
THE GERMAN YEARS
ss
Growing Renown
grasped in its totality; that is, only if both the total concrete situa-
tion and its specific properties were understood. The concrete single
case had to be described, then, in its phenotypical and its genotyp-
ical aspects. It was not the frequency of a case's occurrence that was
decisive, but the exact description of all the forces operating in and
upon it at a given moment, including the inner forces (needs) as
well as the external ones (environment).
This assumption led Lewin to another: That the behavior of a
person can be predicted-but only if his total psychological field or
life space at a given moment is known. And it is more useful to
know a single concrete case in its totality than to know many cases
in only one or a few of their aspects. For, in the latter instance, both
the wholeness of the person and the potential wholeness of the psy~
chological field are overlooked.
This original article on Aristotelian versus Galileian mode of
thought captured the imagination of psychologists in all parts of the
world and contributed greatly to Lewin's growing reputation.
Many of his innumerable friends of later years first became aware of
his work through this essay. Claude Faucheux, an eminent psychol-
ogist at the Sorbonm~ in Paris, recently commented that this article
continues to this day to be a major influence in French psychology.
59
THE GERMAN YEARS
7
LAST DAYS AT THE
BERLIN INSTITUTE
During this period the work of the Psychological Institute was at its
crest. Then danger signals appeared. As the 193o's opened, Europe's
economic prosperity began to fade. The Wall Street crash of 1929
dried up American investment. Amid the bitter grumblers and
scapegoat-seekers, reinforced by the economic distress of the coun-
try, Hitler and his party gained the political strength to take over
the German government.
On the day in 1930 when the new Reichstag met, a Nazi delega-
tion of 107 marched to the meeting in their brown uniforms, shout-
ing in chorus, "Germany awake! Jews get out!" They smashed the
shopwindows of Jewish-owned department stores on the Leipziger-
strasse. Three Nazi-inspired riots broke out at the University. The
rioters demanded: "Juden beraus!" and one Jewish student was
murdered. The University was closed three times; but most of the
faculty, though troubled by what they saw and heard, continued to
feel that the situation was temporary, that Nazism was a passing
madness and that "it couldn't happen here." Still, it was unsettling,
and the Lewins, who saw more clearly than some of their frierids
what might happen, were apprehensive. And then, of course, it did
happen.
64
Last Days at the Berlin Institute
About this time, and by happy coincidence, Kurt received an
invitation to spend six months as a visiting professor at Stanford
University in Palo Alto, California. The bid came from Lewis M.
Terman, Chairman of the Psychology Department at Stanford,
who had asked Edwin G. Boring, Director of the Psychological
Laboratory at Harvard, to recommend a distinguished visiting
scholar with a broad background. Boring had heard Lewin at the
International Meeting at Yale in I 929 and suggested that Lewin was
the best man. Lewin welcomed the invitation and decided to accept.
In May I 932, Kurt arrived in New York, where he stopped for a
few days en route to California. Gerti and their year-old daughter,
Miriam, went ahead by boat through the Panama Canal. As a guest
at the Columbia University Faculty Club, Lewin was introduced to
a young assistant professor of psychology, Gardner Murphy, who
subsequently became a good friend. Murphy remembers being in-
troduced to a "slender, rosy-cheeked, eager, thoughtful young
man," who, in his rather broken English, spoke earnestly of the
political happenings in the Germany he had just left. Then Lewin
went on to describe experiments he had been conducting at the
Psychological Institute. He projected an interest in his subject that
was warm and intense. Murphy was fascinated; he hurried home to
look up Lewin's recently published article on the environmental
forces in child behavior and development.
Shortly after reaching Stanford, Kurt was asked to deliver a
paper before a meeting of the Western Psychological Association.
According to Roger Barker, Terman was considerably worried for
fear Lewin couldn't speak English. "And, as I soon learned, rightly
so. He couldn't. I know now what the paper was about," says
Barker, who, as a doctoral student in psychology at Stanford,
attended the meeting. "But at the time I hadn't the faintest idea-
partly because of his language, and partly because his ideas were so
entirely foreign." Lewin discussed the subject of "substitute play"-
that is, activities that serve as substitutes for uncompleted tasks. But
since none of his hearers was familiar with his experiments with
uncompleted tasks, nobody understood what he was saying.
In his classes, however, Lewin was able to get across to his stu-
THE GERMAN YEARS
dents, some of whom began to get an inkling of his theme. "He was
a great communicator," observes Barker's wife, Louise. "He could
gesture and he was so eager to tell you what he was trying to say
that you just had to understand, and so you did."
One of Lewin's students that summer was Pauline Sears (Mrs.
Robert Sears), who enrolled in Lewin's class at Terman's suggestion.
She does not recall having too much trouble with Lewin's English,
but she did have difficulty in understanding his ideas about topology
and in following his diagrams-a new experience for her. "His Eng-
lish wasn't terribly good," she remembers, "but he was a stimulating
personality, vital in his gestures, and he had brought with him mar-
velous motion pictures." Years later, in 1938, Lewin invited Robert
Sears-who had done work in level of aspiration at Illinois-to a
meeting of the Topological Society at Cornell. Sears and Neil Miller,
who went with him, were the only non-Lewinians there. Both
Robert Sears and Roger Barker recall one phrase from Lewin's then
limited stock of English which delighted his classes and stayed in his
students' memories. Someone challenged Lewin on a point, and he
retorted, "Can be, but I sink absolute azzer." The remark became a
kind of slogan among Lewin's increasingly numerous friends and
supporters.
For one thing, the German professor was a natural democrat,
something his students were quick to appreciate. Barker .remembers
Lewin's lying down on a table in a classroom one afternoon. "I
guess it was a long day, so he just lay down but kept the class
going-certainly an on-German thing to do. Yet, despite his popu-
larity, his ideas were so new-so startling, really, and so far beyond
any of us at the time-that he really didn't have much impact on his
students or even his fellow faculty members. Lewin had a back-
ground in philosophy and he had his own theory of science. None
of us were equipped to follow him because we lacked his back-
ground. So we listened but did not fully understand or appreciate
the originality of his ideas and the scope of his theory."
Lewin's appointment at Stanford ended with the beginning of the
spring semester. Early in January 1933, Gertrud, who was expect-
ing a second child, had set out across the United States with Miriam
66
Last Days at the Berlin Institute
to return to Germany by ship. Kurt had decided to return by way
of the Pacific, so that he could make stops in Japan and Russia,
where he had been invited to lecture. Leaving Japan, he would pro-
ceed by way of the Trans-Siberian Railroad across the U.S.S.R. to
Moscow and continue later by train to Berlin.
At Yokohama, Lewin was met by his student of a decade earlier,
Professor Kanae Sakuma, who had modeled the Psychological Insti-
tute at Kyushu University upon the Institute in Berlin. Lewin's rep-
utation had preceded him to Japan, and there was a lively discussion
following his lectures and the showing of his famous movie of
Hannah learning how to sit on a stone. Lewin was delighted to
discover that a number of young scholars in Tokyo had formed a
group to study his work, which they called the "Lewin-Klasse"-a
group largely responsible for Lewin's influence on Japanese psy-
chology.
He had an intense discussion with Professor Koreshige Masuda of
Tokyo University, who expressed some serious doubt about the
merits of Lewin's topological psychology. It was typical of Lewin's
approach to a problem that, several days later while on a train from
Tokyo to Kansar, he worked out a diagram that he felt would dispel
Professor Masuda's reservations and asked Professor Sakuma to
show it to him.
Meantime, little Miriam became ill en route to New York, and
Gertrud had to delay their sailing. They were house guests of Fritz
and Grace Heider in Northampton, Massachusetts, on January 30,
when word came that Hitler had become Chancellor of Germany.
Kurt heard the news just before he began his long train journey
across Siberia, but, as he could not read the Japanese newspapers, he
did not grasp the full impact of the event. Only after he reached
Moscow, where his friends Bluma Zeigarnik and the distinguished
Russian psychologist A. R. Luria were able to discuss it with him in
German, did he fully realize what had happened.
By this time Lewin had concluded that he could not remain in
Berlin. He foresaw then that no Jew and no man concerned with
the spirit of free inquiry could live in Nazi Germany. He cabled
THE GERMAN YEARS
8
THE BEGINNINGS
OF A NEW LIFE
In the fall of 1933, Kurt Lewin began a new life in a strange land-
not as a visiting professor, but as a refugee scholar with a temporary
appointment supported by Foundation funds. His new country was
experiencing the worst economic depression of its history, its people
struggling with an economy of scarcity that suffused all of Ameri-
can life. Some fifteen million men, more than a quarter of the work
force, were without jobs. Soup kitchens, bread lines, men selling
apples on street corners-these characterized the scene in 1933.
There were fewer students in the nation's colleges, faculties were
reduced, salaries slashed. Scholars fortunate enough to hold faculty
appointments-and Americans who were seeking them-were not
enthusiastic about the competition for jobs by foreign refugee
scholars. Lewin had sensed this when he was visiting professor at
Stanford in 1932; he was very much more aware of it when he came
back to the United States.
Rensis Likert remembers meeting Lewin for the first time in 1933
at a luncheon in New York City with Douglas Fryer of New York
University. Lewin had stopped in New York for a few days on his
way to Cornell. "His forecast of developments in Nazi Germany
was depressing-but accurate," Likert recalls. Among other things,
Lewin expressed the view that the German people would neither
73
THE AMERICAN YEARS
77
THE AMERICAN YEARS
sents the person, the psychological environment and the life space.
The Jordan curve (or elliptical ring), Lewin maintained, is not an
illustration but a representtaion of reality. Lewin cautioned that
these representations correspond primarily to momentary situations
and that these are constantly being altered. Psychological reality, he
reminded psychologists, is forever changing because of the dynamic
forces in the person and the environment.
FIGURE 8-2. Relations between various strata of the person under different
circumstances. (a) The per_son in an easy situation: the peripheral parts p of
the inner-personal region I, are easily accessible from outside E; the more
central parts c are less accessible; the inner-personal region I influences the
motor region M relatively freely. (b) The person under stress, instate of self-
control: the peripheral parts p of the inner-personal region I are less accessible
than in (a); peripheral and central parts ( c and p) are more closely connected;
communication between I and M is less free. (c) The person under very high
tension: unification (primitivation, "regression") of the inner-personal region
I. M, motor-perceptual region; I, inner-personal region; p, peripheral parts of
I; c, central parts of I; E, environment; Be, dynamic wall between c and p; B,.,
dynamic wall between I and M. (From Principles of Topological Psychology,
p. 181.)
Lewin's book did not get the attention many of his colleagues felt
it deserved-perhaps because its concepts were so unfamilar or be-
cause the terminology (in spite of all the Heiders' efforts) was so
difficult. American psychologists were not used to the idea of math-
ematical models and none of them knew topology. Moreover, aS"
few were willing to learn it, most of them never really understood
the book. Many interpreted the topological representations as mere
pictures or illustrations, rather than as mathematics. Besides, the
mathematics was not very powerful in that early form; so a psy-
chologist had to have faith that it could be developed further and
that such development would be a gradual process.
79
THE AMERICAN YEARS
81
THE AMERICAN YEARS
ments and crises of the years between Bismarck and Hitler. He had
been an officer in an army that had been deemed the greatest mili-
tary machine of its time yet had gone down to harsh defeat. He had
been deeply affected by the political turmoil and economic catastro-
phe of the Weimar Republic. He had encountered the violent and
increasingly barbaric anti-Semitism of Hitler Germany. This, com-
bined with an intense commitment to the problems and values of
science, sharpened his awareness of the relationships between knowl-
edge and policy, of the need for attention to political issues if human
life and culture were to grow and be renewed. He had a view of
what kind of human community the democratic society should be,
having seen at first hand the enemies of such a society.
Thus, like T ocqueville a hundred years earlier, Lewin looked at
American life using his European experience as a continual and ines-
capable point of reference. In his speculation and research, this led
in the ensuing years to a deepening interest in problems of demo-
cratic leadership and of the conditions for effective individual and
group growth; it gave rise to a widening concern about ways in
which greater knowledge of human behavior could be used to deal
with social problems.
Donald MacKinnon believes that "in some ways it was a good
thing that he did emigrate and find himself in an entirely new envi-
ronment. This was the stimulus which directed his energies to prob-
lems that he might never have dealt with if there hadn't been an
upheaval in the world at that particular time. All these terrible
events deepened his commitment to mankind and the betterment of
man's lot."
ss
CHAPTER
9
SETTING
NEW FORCES
IN ACTION
in the minds of many of us. It was one of the things I have tried to
carry over among my own students and I have learned how very
difficult it is to establish that kind of atmosphere."
The group never became large. The membership merely altered
as new students arrived, presented their work, wrote their theses,
and departed. There were neither bars to nor requirements for
membership; no one was "screened" either formally or informally.
It was not thought to be especially "fashionable" or "unfashionable"
to eat one's lunch with the Club on Tuesdays. If one was a graduate
student in one of Lewin's seminars and had a problem to discuss,
he-or she-would probably bring it to the next meeting of the Club.
Robert Leeper, who was teaching at a college some twenty-odd
miles from Iowa City, wrote that he made weekly trips "to partici-
pate in a seminar in which Lewin was presenting his interpretation
of a monograph on psychological forces." Leeper ranks his encoun-
ter with Lewin as "among the pleasantest memories of my life. It
was a privilege both emotionally and intellectually to share in the
discussions with Lewin and his eager students and associates. The
seminars often met at Lewin's home, in a room with brown-stained
wooden walls and a floor littered with sheets of brown wrapping
paper on which Lewin and the students drew their diagrams in
colored chalk. The 'full-fledged topologists' came to these sessions
equipped with four-color pencils, to squat on their hands and knees
and draw on wrapping paper."
Donald MacKinnon has remarked that the group around Kurt
Lewin was "as loyal as the early group around Freud." But, where
Freud required a kind of fealty and conformity to his views, Lewin
never made any such demands on his students or colleagues. "As a
result, for sound psychological reasons, the inevitable apostasies
against Freud were very messy, whereas people could move out of
Lewin's immediate circle even during his lifetime and still maintain
ties with him and others in his circle. If you drifted away, you
wouldn't feel guilty about it, and you weren't accused of disloyalty.
I think Kurt was quite right in saying that he didn't want to develop
a school of psychology; he was merely trying to develop a language
for the representation of psychological phenomena."
THE AMERICAN YEARS
group work. When I got there, I met Leon Festinger and all the
other students in Lewin's circle."
Leon Festinger also sought out Lewin at Iowa: "'Vhen I received
my degree at C.C.N.Y., I was already interested in studies of the
level of aspiration and went out to Iowa in 1939 specifically because
Kurt Lewin was there. My introduction to this problem had been
through Max Hertzman, who was lecturing on it at C.C.N.Y. His
wife, Rosalind Gould, was working on the same topic for her doc-
torate at Columbia. Hertzman and I did a study together on group
variables involved in the level of aspiration. That was my first pub-
lished study, done in 1938-1939; it appeared about 1941. I was
attracted to Lewin, and the areas in which he worked, by his ability
to bring a rigorous experimental approach to problems such as the
Zeigarnik effect and the level of aspiration. It is a rare ability in
psychology. These problems became more interesting than others
to me because of the precise experimental approach, together with
the effort to pull out the general theoretical importance of the
finding."
Erik Wright came to Iowa in 1937 "because Al Hicks had com-
pleted his Ph.D. during Lewin's first year here. I had taken my
Master's degree under Hicks and was enthusiastic about going there
for my doctorate. I was able to get an appointment as a fellow in the
Child Welfare Research Station, where Lewin worked. After one
semester with Lewin, I determined to take every course I could with
him-and I did."
Alvin Zander visited Lewin at Iowa during Christmas vacation in
1941 while still a student at the University of Michigan, and in
February Lewin offered him a job. Zander worked with him on
food habits, leadership training, and observations of Boy Scout
troops. Zander left Iowa in 1942 to move to the national headquar-
ters of the Boy Scouts, where Ronald Lippitt had already brought
in Lewin as an adviser on field research. Zander recounts how
Lewin involved almost everyone with whom he came into contact.
"A student came to ask him a question one day while I was in his
office. Lewin replied to the student that he could best learn what he
wanted to know by joining us in our current research endeavor.
Setting New Forces in Action
"We will help you by exploiting you," Lewin told him, and the
student cheerfully chipped in.
Lewin was also concerned about the personal growth of his
fellow workers. He often talked to Zander and others about the
students who were studying with him at the Child Welfare Re-
search Station, telling of his hopes for their improvement and what
he was doing to help them excel. His was the attitude of a parent
asking himself what he must do for a gifted child. He often paid
calls on his co-workers, students, and their families. "He treated his
students in a fatherly way," Zander said, "and his research assistants
could expect visits from him in their homes with no advance notice
of his coming. On such an occasion he chatted about personal mat-
ters and in many ways acted as though he were part of the family."
Lewin frequently invited his students and colleagues to accompany
him and his family on picnics and drives. Sometimes the rides were
hair-raising experiences. Lewin, his mind absorbed, would pay more
attention to his talk than to his driving, and he would often take his
hands off the wheel to make excited gestures.
"One of the many things that the Lewins did for us," said Louise
Barker of the early days at Iowa, "was to help us to see lots of things
about our own country-and life in general-in a new perspective,
since they came from such a different background and were so easy
to communicate with. Yau see things more clearly when you have
something else to sight against. Kurt and Gert gave us that."
John R. P. French, Jr., who came from Harvard to study with
Lewin, says, "Lewin had a basic respect for the ideas of others, no
matter who they were. He never hesitated to examine a suggestion
and usually found in it interesting things that ought to be talked
about. He greeted new i.deas with glee and would get so excited
about them that he sparkled."
Lewin never ceased to be as interested in the ideas of his juniors as
in those of his equals. To many of his students he brought a rare
sense of recognition and Roger Barker remarked on this gratefully.
"It was the first time that anyone had taken my ideas seriously."
Sometimes, however, Lewin seemed insensitive. If, on occasion, a
member of the class would try to get a point explained, he might
93
THE AMERICAN YEARS
94
Setting New Forces in Action
95
CHAPTER
110
EARLY
IOWA YEARS-
SOCIAL THEORY
AND
SOCIAL PROBLEMS
The Iowa to which the Lewin family had moved in 19 35 was lo-
cated in the most typically American region on the continent, the
Midwest. Its residents felt secure in the belief that the Atlantic and
Pacific oceans constituted a broad and ·watery barrier against any
possible attack on the Vnited States. Midwesterners saw no reason
to look outward at all.
Lewin chafed at this isolationist attitude toward events abroad
during this period. On both the East and ~est coasts of the United
States, thinking Americans received with grave foreboding the
news of Mussolini's attack on Ethiopia in October 1935 and of re-
newed Japanese attacks on Manchuria two years later. But in Amer-
Early Iowa Years-Social Theory and Social Problems
ica's great heartland these tidings were either disregarded or used to
buttress arguments in opposition to any further American involve-
ment in foreign wars.
By contrast, Lewin was devoting more and more time to social
issues. The direction of his thinking was changing. His emphasis was
now on social psychological problems. And though many Ameri-
cans refused to look at the outside world, their own country became
the target for increasing anti-Jewish propaganda-particularly from
the Nazi regime in Germany. The field was a fertile one. As early as
1933 John J. Smertenko wrote in Harper's Magazine, "Today it is
no secret that Jews have great difficulty in gaining admission to the
institutions of higher learning and that their opportunities for legal
and medical training are limited to a minimum. It is equally well
known that the professions of banking, engineering and teaching
are closed to all but a few, and the quasi-public service corporations
vigorously exclude them."
This growing anti-Semitism, Lewin realized, was part of the
American reaction to World War I and the Russian Communist
Revolution. After the Depression hit, this prejudice became more
pronounced as the less-informed among the millions of unemployed
sought an answer to, and a scapegoat for, their miseries. In the Mid-
west, with its relatively small Jewish population, it was easy to
accept the notion that unseen hordes of East Coast Jews were self-
ishly holding on to all the money that should be spread throughout
the country. In Detroit, Father Charles E. Coughlin, the "radio
priest" who had converted his children's catechism hour to a week-
ly tirade aimed at their parents, provided further identification of
the profiteers: they had been Jewish.
Busy as he was with his work, Lewin nevertheless paid sharp heed
to the expression of these ominous political and social sentiments. It
did not make him critical of his new homeland-indeed, Lewin's
whole approach was so exuberant and democratic as to suggest that
spiritually he was born an American-but the evils that grew out of
Midwestern isolationism disturbed him. During the period from
1936 to 1940, he wrote several articles dealing with his reaction to
this situation.
97
THE AMERICAN YEARS
99
THE AMERICAN YEARS
FIGURE 10-1. Personality Structure. The thickness of the boundary lines be-
tween the personality layers represents the difference in accessibility. The
hatched area corresponds to the "private" region of the person.
countries and thus cut off the major escape route for European Jews
facing the horrors of mounting anti-Semitism. Lewin was keenly
aware of the discrimination practiced against racial and religious
minority groups which characterized much of American life.
·It was President Abbott Lawrence Lowell of Harvard who, in his
graduation address in June 1922, had first publicly proposed a quota
system to limit the number of Jewish university students. The trus-
tees of Harvard rejected Lowell's proposal, but there could be no
doubt that during the next ten years the idea took root in American
higher education. Nor was there any doubt that anti-Semitism was
growing in other spheres as well. Though a comparative newcomer
to this country, Lewin reacted with unusual vigor and wrote a num-
ber of theoretical articles on group prejudice and tension and on the
psychological problems confronting minority groups whose space
of free movement was restricted by discrimination.
His zeal for research never .flagged, and he prodded his helpers
ceaselessly. Often after a heated discussion on method, the group
would adjourn to his office with the idea of working out specific
plans for an experiment. Tamara Dembo, Herbert Wright, and
Roger Barker would be there, and sometimes others. Lewin would
discuss the research and make notes. Then he would say, "I'd better
dictate this" (because nobody could read his handwriting), and dic-
tate rapidly, while those present furiously wrote it down for their
own notes.
Barker recalls "being so tired I ached. Lewin would go on and on.
101
THE AMERICAN YEARS
105
THE -AMERICAN YEARS
107
THE AMERICAN YEARS
108
Early Iowa Years-Social Theory and Social Problems
rity. His reliance on the firmness of this ground might not be con-
sciously perceived-just as one tends to take for granted the physical
ground on which one walks-but dynamically the assurance pro-
vided by the firmness of this ground determines what a person
wants to do, what he can do, and how he will do it. A person and his
psychological environment, Lewin insisted, are dynamically one
field and should never be treated as separate entities. From early
childhood, social facts-especially the sense of belonging to particu-
lar groups-are among the most fundamental determinants of the
child's growing world, for they shape his wishes and goals and what
he considers right and wrong.
All this being so, should the minority-group child-or, particu-
larly, the Jewish child-be made more or less conscious of his mem-
bership in a despised group? Would there be any danger that in
stressing his membership in it he might be made to feel so isolated
from his non-Jewish fellows that this would impair all his relation-
ships with them? Lewin felt it would not. Indeed, he argued to the
contrary. To attempt to dissociate the child from his group might
plunge him into unnecessarily grave conflicts, weaken his ability to
cope with them, and develop in him behavior patterns more likely
to increase than to decrease antagonism toward him on the part of
the majority group.
I IO
CHAPTER
II II
TOPOLOGY AND THE
REPRESENTATION
OF PSYCHOLOGICAL
FORCES
that size would not hinder free interaction. With the exception of
the World War II years, when travel was restricted, and two years
in the early 196o's, the meetings continued annually through 1965.
The first get-together was held during the Christmas holiday at
Smith College in Northampton in 1933. Kurt Koffka was on the
faculty of Smith, and the group's informal meetings were held in his
laboratory there. In attendance was the small circle of colleagues
who had known Lewin in Berlin-among them, MacKinnon, Adams,
Zener, Heider, Dembo, and several others. A few local people also
joined in. There was no plan of continuing yearly meetings. The
idea of other meetings developed as the group enjoyed and felt the
value of these days that they spent together.
The second meeting, a year later, was held at Duke University,
where Adams and Zener were faculty members; and the third
gathering, held at Bryn Mawr, was one of the most memorable, for
the eminence of its participants and for the spirited discussions
which lasted over the three-day period. Adams and Zener came
from Duke; Tolman and Krech, from California. Among the others
present were Dembo, Erik Erikson, L. K. Frank, Fritz and Grace
Heider, Koffka, Kohler, Gerti Lewin, MacKinnon, Margaret Mead,
William Stern, and others. In part, the number of those able to be
present was increased by the generosity of Lewin's benefactor Law-
rence Frank, who obtained a grant from the Laura Spelman Rocke-
feller Fund to help underwrite expenses.
Despite its informality, with few prepared papers, it was an excit-
ing meeting. As was true of the other topology meetings, everyone
said something about what he was working on or what currently
interested him. When Margaret Mead, Edward Tolman, Kurt
Koffka, and Erik Erikson, with their quite different approaches,
joined in, everything that was said and each response to it would
stimulate a new idea. There was no atmosphere of attacking and
rejecting, and there was none of the painful conflict often present in
discussions of theoretical differences.
Typical of the format was the meeting at Harvard the following
year, 1936. It opened with a paper by Henry A. Murray on factors
within the personality and how they might be approximately esti-
112
Topology and the Representation of Psychological Forces
mated, giving details on specific experiments at the Harvard Psycho-
logical Clinic. Donald MacKinnon followed with a paper entitled
"The Recall Value of Satiated and Non-Satiated Activities." David
Shakow reported on the level of aspiration of schizophrenics, and
David Krech ended the first day with a paper entitled "Measure-
ment of Negative Valences Induced by Frustration." While the
papers were being delivered, Lewin sat quietly in the back of the
room, sometimes appearing to be only half listening. But once the
discussion began, he was his usual animated self, bursting with ideas,
comments, criticism, and encouragement.
The second day was as strenuous as the first, with a report by
Barker on his experiments with frustrations and regression in chil-
dren; one by Ruth Benedict on "Groups of Differentiation Type,
Structure, and Degree of Differentiation"; and a paper by Tamara
Dembo on "The Conceptual Representation of Certain Facts Im-
portant for Psychology and Sociology." By the third day the Topo-
logical Society members were down to only two papers-one by
Harold Lasswell, on "The Effect of Political Circumstances on
Changes in the State of Groups," and one by Gordon Allport, on
"The Effect of the Group on the Individual."
Gardner Murphy, who had first met Lewin at the Columbia
Faculty Club when he was en route to Stanford in 1932, became
much better acquainted with him during the meeting of the Topol-
ogy group at Cornell during Christmas of 1938. "Edward Tolman
was there, and it was a gay, grand party-an intellectual feast-a
personal glimpse of intense intellectual companionship," Murphy
comments. "Lewin sat characteristically to one side, in an inconspic-
uous place, while various speakers presented ideas, methods, results.
He was always in good humor; he particularly enjoyed having peo-
ple disagree with him/'
Margaret Mead, too, first got to know Lewin at one of the Christ-
mas meetings-an earlier one held at Bryn Mawr in 1935. "Already
the shape of later conferences was foreshadowed," she relates, "in
that contributors each spoke from their special inspiration, referring
to-but not using-Kurt's own complex diagrams and formulations."
One memorable year, 1 940-when the group was again at Smith
113
THE AMERICAN YEARS
I 14
Topology and the Representation of Psychological Forces
was Kurt's reactions and Kurt's ideas that stimulated the group
more than anyone else's. I think the reason why Kurt had such a
following was that he loved the ideas people brought with them.
Kurt's rewards were the rewards of intrinsic motivation as opposed
to extrinsic motivation. Lewin didn't do anything for the pay or
other external rewards; he did it because he was vitally interested-
in psychoanalytic terms we would say that he invested his own
libido-and loved the problems we were talking about and he was
working with. It was this love that existed and drew the group
together-not a personal love of one person for another, but a love
that was generated because of Kurt's interest in, and real devotion
to, everyone's problems and the time he spent with us on them.
Lewin enjoyed what he was doing."
The Topology Group continued to meet annually except, as pre-
viously noted, for several years during World War II. In 1964, by
informal vote, the Group decided to cease further meetings except
for a final dinner meeting in connection with the A.P.A. convention
in 1965. Thus, after thirty-two years, as Roger Barker reports, "we
put a period to an important sentence in the history of psychology."
The meetings had continued to attract outstanding younger psy-
chologists, as well as to retain many of the original participants.
116
Topology and the Representation of Psychological Forces
117
THE AMERICAN YEARS
person, his goals and fears, and his personality; "physiological" data,
such as the person's being healthy or sick, strong or weak; finally,
such "physical" actualities as the size of the physical area in which
the person or a group is located. '
It is utterly fruitless and merely a negative scientific treatment to
put these facts into classifying pigeonholes. We need positive means
of bringing these various types of facts together in such a way that
one can treat them on one level without sacrificing the recognition
of their specific characteristics. A way must be found to treat bodily
changes, shift of ideology, and group-belongingness within one
realm of scientific language, in a single realm of discourse of con-
cepts. The question is "How can that be done?"
It can be accomplished by the use of constructs which character-
ize objects and events in terms of interdependence rather than of
phenotypical similarity or dissimilarity. Thus, if one "characterizes
an object or event by the way it affects the situation, every type of
fact is placed on the same level and becomes interrelated with any
other fact which affects the situation. The problem of whether or
not one is permitted to combine, e.g., concepts of values with those
of bodily weight, vanishes when confronted with the simple truth
that both facts influence the same situation. [In the field approach],
instead of picking out isolated facts, and later on trying to 'synthe-
size' them, the total situation is taken into account and is represented
from the beginning. The field-theoretical approach, therefore, means
a method of 'gradual approximation' by way of a stepwise in-
creasing specificity. Picking out isolated facts within a situation may
lead easily to a picture which is entirely distorted. A field-theoretical
representation, on the other hand, can and should be essentially
correct at any degree of perfection."
II8
CHAPTER
112
EXPERIMENTAL
STUDIES
119
THE AMERICAN YEARS
120
Experimental Studies
structiveness was the richness of the play activity in which the child
engaged. Thus the experimenters set up a continuum which ranged
from free, simple, little-structured activity to imaginative, highly
developed play. The former was rated of low constructiveness; the
latter, high. Great care was taken to es~ablish the best possible con-
ditions for constructive play and for the establishment of a feeling
of security among the children.
In the non-frustration phase of the experiment, each child was led
individually into a room which contained conventional play materi-
als and was left to play alone. The experimenter sat at a desk pre-
tending to be absorbed in his own work but actually making records
of the behavior he observed. At the end of thirty minutes, the exper-
imenter walked to the middle of the room and lifted a wire-mesh
screen which had closed off half the room. In the "just opened"
section, there were a number of new, attractive, and exciting toys
and the children were encouraged to play with them. They soon
were duly absorbed and thoroughly fascinated. This part of the
experiment was designed to develop highly desirable goals for the
child which he could later be prevented from reaching. This was a
prerequisite to creating frustration.
After the child had become deeply absorbed, the experimenter
interrupted the play and led the child to the "old" part of the room.
The experimenter then lowered the wire partition and fastened it
with a padlock. The exciting toys were still fully visible to the child
but were now physically inaccessible. The experimenter returned to
his desk, leaving the child to do as he desired with the old toys. Thus
began the frustration phase of the experiment. The situation brought
out two easily recognized kinds of behaviors. The first related to
accessible goals-playing with the conventional toys, talking, etc.
The second related to inaccessible goals-trying to reach the toys
behind the barrier, coaxing, complaining, making efforts to remove
or break the wire partitions, etc.
Records of play for the two periods were then compared and
rated for constructiveness. It was found, not surprisingly, that after
the wire screen was lowered and locked, the children spent an aver-
age of more than one third of the time trying to penetrate the bar-
I2I
THE AMERICAN YEARS
vidual had already outgrown. Regression, on the other hand, was "a
change to a more primitive behavior, regardless of whether such
behavor has actually occurred within the life history of the indi·
vidual."
123
THE AMERICAN YEARS
124
Experimental Studies
127
THE AMERICAN YEARS
Iowa City, and if I come down at any prairie airport at sunset I can
still recapture the sense of excitement and freedom, as I was greeted
by a group of students whose personalities had been liberated by the
atmosphere in which Kurt worked.
"I had to state our cultural hypotheses in forms which were intel-
ligible to Kurt and his research group, who were oversensitive to
individual differences and still skeptical about cultural differences.
We wrestled far into the night over cultural formulations which
would be derived from a study of New England and the Midwest:
Specific formulations were then tried out in versions of the Bavelas
test: 'What is a good meal for a boy to eat?' and 'Who would praise
him for it?' From open-ended tests of this sort-psychological ones
related to carefully constructed cultural hypotheses-we obtained
new information about customs, finer differentiations of the mater-
nal and paternal moral roles in the local Iowa version of American
culture, and concrete details showing that Father presided over
meat and butter, Mother over green vegetables and fruit juices,
while desserts and soft drinks were wholly delightful and approved
by no parent at all."
During the course of these studies, Miss Mead recalls, the concept
later known as "group decision" was developed. Incongruous as it
might seem that so significant a process should originate in a set of
experiments on how housewives could learn to eat and serve so-
called "variety meats," this was precisely where it began. Another
set of studies had revealed that, though women claimed that their
choice of meat to serve their families was imposed on them by their
husbands, this actually was not the case. Indeed, it had been shown
that the husbands had to eat what their wives themselves liked. All
that would be necessary, therefore, to promote wider use of variety
meats was to convince the housewives that they liked to eat them.
Other studies were conducted with carefully constructed groups
of housewives or fraternity students on the use of such food items as
whole-wheat bread or turnips. Miss Mead remembers the ill-fated
experiment in which she was brought in as the "prestige expert from
Washington to express publicly my high approval of turnips-
which had no effect at all." But from these studies the experimenters
IJO
Experimental Studies
113
WIDENING CIRCLE
132
Widening Circle
the case study and a very special exploratory and therapeutic tecf:t-
nique." Topological psychology, by way of contrast, employs all
the accepted scientific methods, but it stresses especially the findings
obtained through systematic experiments. Nor would topological
psychology be satisfied with the method of proof employed by psy-
choanalysts for their theories. "It insists upon the much more rigid
and higher standards of experimental psychology," he said, "such as
have been developed in perception psychology."
The same lack of experimental precision, he felt, affects the con-
tent of psychoanalysis, which "has more or less consciously pre-
ferred richness of content to logical strictness of theory." To Lewin,
psychoanalysis seemed speculative and intuitive, rather than logical
and exact. "In other words," he said, "psychoanalysis is a body of
ideas, rather than a system of theories and concepts." In its content,
too, he contended, psychoanalysis most often confuses the problem
by giving historical answers to systematic problems-a confusion of
which topological psychology is free. Topological psychology dis-
tinguishes clearly between the two types of problems. In particular,
topological psychology takes cognizance of the psychological envi-
ronment-that is, it regards all psychological events as derived from
the life space as a whole, and this, said Lewin, "includes both person
and environment, whereas psychoanalysis deals mainly with the
person."
He also felt that the very depth of historical coverage in psycho-
analysis-especially in view of its failure to distinguish sufficiently
between historical and systematic formulations-was a liability as
well as an asset.
It is hopeless, Lewin argued, to try to establish any sort of laws in
psychology without drawing on the experimental method. Though
he conceded that the procedure of the psychoanalyst might be
regarded as experimental in that the recovery of his patient
"proved" his theory to be correct, Lewin did not recognize this as
valid as evidence derived from experiments would be. "The superi-
ority of the experimental method," he reiterated, "is based solely on
two facts: it is a good way to disprove theories and it is highly self-
correcting."
IJ3
THE AMERICAN YEARS
134
Widening Circle
135
THE AMERICAN YEARS
136
Tflidening Circle
others, his response was an urge to reshape this thought into his own
expanding system."
During part of his time at Harvard, Lewin lived alone at the
Ambassador Hotel, where at one point he became ill and stayed in
his room for several days. Learning of the illness, Allport arranged to
have Lewin admitted to the Stillman Infirmary. He went to Lewin's
room, bundled him up, and took him to the elevator. When the
elevator door opened, there appeared a very frenzied gentleman
who kept repeating, "How do you get out of this damned trap? I've
been going up and down and can't make it behave!" The frantic
gentleman was Bertrand Russell. "Between his hysterics and Kurt's
delirium, I had a memorable elevator ride," declares Allport. "Need-
less to say, I did not attempt to introduce the two passengers."
Mason Haire adds to the picture: "Though the longest period
during which I worked with Lewin was at M.I.T. after the war, I
first met him at Harvard in 1939 when he was leading a seminar as a
visitor. Quite a few people who worked with him later started with
Lewin at that time, including Jack French, Dorwin Cartwright,
John Harding, and Eliot Jacques. I think Lewin had a great deal to
offer Harvard and wanted to be invited there. On the Harvard
faculty, he seemed to get along best with Gordon Allport, though
the relationship was difficult because their orientation was so differ-
ent. Henry Murray and Lewin also had difficulties because they
were more similar, though I'm judging this from the vantage point
and distance of a graduate student. Stevens' 'operationism' was a
way of letting the experiment intervene between the experimenter
and the phenomenon, in the tradition of Boring. The idea was to get
at the physical dimensions and not worry about epiphenomena. But
Lewin was interested in going deeply into the study of the phenom-
enon, and so he was happier at the Clinic."
Gardner Murphy had been present when, during an earlier visit
by Lewin to Harvard in 1936, Lewin and Henry Murray were
comparing "systems." Lewin was, as usual, covering a blackboard-
in the lecture room on the second floor of Emerson Hall-with his
symbolizations of hodological and vector psychology. The air was
heavy with chalk dust. "But how," asked Murray, standing before
1 37
THE AMERICAN YEARS
the maze of lines and cross-hatchings, "can you deal with qualita-
tively different motives, vectors, goals?" Lewin chuckled. "Oh, in
that event we use different colors of chalk."
"I was completely captivated by the very charm and convenience,
both of the broad conceptualization and of the graphic representa-
tions," Murphy said. "In fact, in my first efforts to describe my own
version of field theory, in a paper which appeared in the Journal of
Social Forces, embodying what I had offered at the American Psy-
chological Association in 1936, I used planes, surfaces, and sub-
divided areas in the manner of Kurt. I did not feel that the con-
ception of 'psychological space' (or, as Stern put it, 'personal space')
was well worked out; and Kurt and I once had a hot argument as
to whether some of his diagrams gave us a sociological picture of
persons interacting in a group and whether somehow the life space
of each of the persons involved could be adequately represented in
this manner."
Another invitation brought Lewin to the University of California
in Berkeley during the summer of 1939. Being on the West Coast
meant being close once more to Roger and Louise Barker, who had
moved from Iowa, first to Harvard and then back to .Stanford. Sears
vividly remembers that summer when Lewin taught at Berkeley.
Sears' wife, Pat, had just received her Ph.D. at Yale, writing a disser-
tation on "level of aspiration." John Gardner had won his degree at
Berkeley with another "level of aspiration" study, and Sears had
written several similar papers and had been working on "conflict."
"We were all filled with Lewinian empirical data," Sears recalls.
"We attended a seminar Lewin held about once a week. I was brash
and young and he was the great man, but he was very kind when we
got into an exchange. One evening there was a crowd of fifty or
sixty, and we were giving twenty-minute reports. The topic was
'aggression.' I was co-author of a paper on frustration and aggres-
sion published at Yale. I talked excitedly for a half-hour and sum-
marized the position, emphasizing the theoretical formulations, and
sat down. Then Kurt got up and started talking about his very
different concept of 'aggression.' You would not have known it was
the same phenomenon. Nothing he said sounded to me like 'aggres-
q8
Widening Circle
sion.' I got up after he had finished and said, 'Well, Kurt, this is all
very well, but when you talk about disorganization of behavior, or
whatever you call it, this isn't "aggression." ' He looked at me and
said, 'On the contrary, that is "aggression.'' After I listened to you
talk, I didn't know what topic you were talking about.'"
When the 1939 summer session at Berkeley ended, the Lewins
went with the Barkers for a brief holiday to a cabin in the Sierra
Madre mountains loaned to the Barkers by Louise's uncle. Robert
Leeper, another member of the Lewin circle, joined them, and it
was there that they first received the news that Hitler's armies had
swept into Poland on September 1. The cabin had no electricity,
but Kurt tuned in the car radio. Amid the shrieks and whines of its
static, they heard the news. "This is it," Lewin told them. "This is
the beginning, and it won't end in Poland."
Lewin was deeply pessimistic. During the years since his own es-
cape from Nazism, he had often spoken about the blindness of those
intellectuals who seemed unable to perceive that a holocaust was
coming. He had increased the time and effort he spent trying to save
family and friends who were still abroad, and often discussed with
American friends the anguished dilemma that arose when suddenly,
at last, everyone wanted to get out of Germany at once and it was
not possible to bring them all. Neither Lewin nor his friends could
possibly provide the large number of guarantors needed to bring to
the United States all who wanted to emigrate from Germany. He
had to make heart-breaking recommendations about priorities. A
friend remembers of this period, "He was busy with endless corre-
spondence about it. Gerti typed, and he dictated. And he walked up
and down the floor."
Lewin's desperate efforts and the obstacles he encountered in try-
ing to save his mother were typical of the experiences faced by·
many others. These have been documented by Arthur D. Morse in
his book While Six Million Died. 1 Morse indicts government offi-
cials for failing to use the machinery at their disposal to rescue Jews
from Hitler, and even going so far as to use the U.S. Government
machinery to prevent the rescue of Jews.
1 D. A. Morse, J-Vbile Six Million Died (New York: Random House, 1¢8).
139
THE AMERICAN YEARS
II~~
ACTION RESEARCH
IN INDUSTRY
Lewin's concern for significant social problems of the day had origi-
nally led him, in his paper on Taylorism in 1920, to deal with the
role of work in man's life. Though he recognized that the industrial
setting was a bitterly controversial issue in the United States in the
late 193o's, he did not hesitate to turn his attention to it when the
opportunity arose in 1939. The occasion was the opening of a new
manufacturing plant in a rural community in Virginia by the Har-
wood Manufacturing Corporation, of which I was an officer. The
factory management faced many critical problems in trying to train
three hundred inexperienced apprentices-people from the Virginia
mountains-to meet the high standards of the production of the
industrialized areas of the North. The trainees-mainly women with
no factory experience-were eager to work, but on the job their
work pace was slow and their output was low. After the customary
twelve weeks of training required for reaching the skill level of an
experienced worker, the local trainees produced only about half as
much as apprentices doing similar tasks in northern plants.
Lewin was invited to visit the plant to meet with the staff to
discuss the problem. Thus began a collaborative relationship that
lasted for eight years. The plant manager reviewed the baffling
THE AMERICAN YEARS
1 43
THE AMERICAN YEARS
.
Group Decision
Bavelas began by holding meetings, lasting for about thirty minutes,
several times a week with a small group of high-producing opera-
tors. The atmosphere was informal and no pressure was used.
Everyone was encouraged to discuss the difficulties he would en-
counter if the group wanted to increase its daily production. The
discussion revealed that people on the same job used different
methods. These were examined and the advantages and disadvan-
tages were analyzed. When the group suggested ways of overcom-
ing the difficulties it anticipated, management agreed to help make
the changes that were recommended.
The group was then asked to vote on the issue of increasing its
own daily output. Each worker would decide for himself, but in the
reinforcing context of the group setting. The group decided to lift
output from the prevailing high ceiling of 75 units to 87 units, a
level never before attained. It decided to reach the goal within five
days-and did so. Later, the group raised its goal to 90 units, reached
it, and later maintained it for five months, during which time other
groups in the plant showed no significant increase.
This occurred because the act of deciding has the effect of linking
motivation to action. Lewin explained, "Motivation alone does not
suffice to lead to change. This link is provided by decisions. A proc-
ess like decision making, which takes only a few minutes, is able to
affect conduct for many months to come. The decision seems to
have a 'freezing' effect which is partly due to the individual's tend-
ency to 'stick to his decision' and partly to the 'commitment to a
group.' " Lewin stated that a discussion would have an outcome
different from a decision. To test this hypothesis, Bavelas compared
the effectiveness of group discussion with group decision. He held
separate meetings with two other groups of skilled operators. But
here the agenda consisted only of discussion about raising produc-
tion rather than making a decision to do so. He found that for the
discussion group only a slight improvement followed. This seemed
1 44
Action Research in Industry
to confirm that the condition precedent to action is decision, that
discussion by itself is not enough.
Self-Management
In another experiment, Bavelas studied the use of "pacing cards" as a
way toward greater self-management in the work situation. He had
a small group of workers plan their own hourly pace by means of
such cards. So long as they kept at or above the required minimum
quota, workers could plan their own hourly and daily work level.
(They were on piece work, so the more they produced, the higher
their earnings.) According to Lewin, the fairly constant output of a
production worker is quasi-stationary. Production therefore could
be increased by strengthening the forces tending toward higher
levels or weakening the forces tending to push production down.
In this experiment, Bavelas found a marked increase in the output
of the pacing-card group. It raised its production from a level of 67
units to 8z and stabilized at this level. The control group remained
unchanged. Such a rise, Lewin observed, could not have been
achieved by pressure methods, which bring on fatigue, aggressive-
ness, nervousness, and marked variation in output. But by diminish-
ing the forces tending toward lower production by means of his
pacing-card device, Bavelas was able to bring about a marked in-
crease of output accompanied by relatively low tension-a necessary
ingredient of stable production.
As is almost inevitable in a business enterprise, experimentation at
Harwood had to be subordinated to practical factory needs. Promis-
ing research often had to be interrupted because of unexpected
changes in production schedules or operating plans. Yet Bavelas,
and then French, who succeeded him, were able to enroll many of
the 6oo plant workers and almost all of the plant's managers in one
experiment or another over the years I 94o- I 947.
1 45
THE AMERICAN YEARS
Leadership Training
In every industrial organization a main goal is to improve the rate of
production. One means of doing this at Harwood was to train fore-
men for leadership. Appointed to their jobs because of their techni-
cal know-how, these supervisors already had the required mechani-
cal skills. But leadership ability and style varied considerably from
person to person. Could the supervisors' leadership skills be strength-
ened by new insights into their role as group leaders? .
With the Lippitt-White study of authoritarian and democratic
leadership as a point of reference, Lewin discussed with French set-
ting up a new program of leadership training in which all levels of
supervisory management would participate. Role playing, socio-
drama, problem solving, and other action techniques were to be
emphasized; lectures and discussions of theory would be few and
brief.
The overall purpose of the leadership-training experiment was to
equip the supervisors with more effective methods of winning co-
operation, building trust, improving morale, and handling the disci-
plinary problems of their subordinates. Training these supervisors
called for practices of self-examination, feedback, openness, confi-
dence building, and group problem solving-all new in industry.
The success of the experiment at Harwood encouraged French to
employ many of the same techniques at the first session of the Na-
tional Training Laboratories in Bethel, Maine, in 1947. Since then
the leadership training methods begun in industry have become in-
tegral parts of sensitivity training programs.
Changing a Stereotype
French was aware that businessmen, although they pride themselves
on being fact -minded, base any number of their personnel policies
on stereotypes and not on scientific fact finding. A stereotype
Action Research in Industry
which confronted the Harwood management was the traditional
attitude toward hiring older workers for machine jobs. The grow-
ing labor scarcity during World War II made it necessary to hire
any workers who were available. But the suggestion that the policy
be changed, and women over thirty years of age be employed, was
vigorously resisted by supervisors at all levels. To overcome this
attitude French held a number of staff meetings at which he offered
objective scientific evidence that women over thirty could acquire
the needed skills. Although the supervisors listened attentively and
seemed impressed, their reluctance to hire older women remained as
strong as ever.
French doubted that presenting more facts would change the
supervisors' attitudes and decided that it would be necessary for the
staff to discover the facts for themselves. Only in this way would
the necessary insight be developed-the recognition of discrepancy
between fact and belief. Toward this end, French suggested that
top staff members undertake a research project of their own. If
older workers were inefficient, it would be practical to determine
how much money the company was losing by retaining the older
women already on the job-women who, for the most part, had
been given employment as hardship cases-as, for example, widows
or women whose husbands were unable to work. French's sugges-
tion was acted upon. The main cost factors considered were daily
output, turnover, absenteeism, and speed of learning.
While French was to be available for counsel if wanted, the staff
members were to conduct the project themselves. They determined
the best methods of collecting data and made all other decisions.
The project was theirs, not his. After a thorough study of the rec-
ords· over a period of several months, the results revealed surpris-
ingly that the older women not only equaled but actually surpassed
the younger women in work performance. Analysis of learning
speed gave similar results: the older workers learned new skills more
rapidly. Absenteeism and turnover comparisons also favored the
older workers. Thus, on the basis of criteria of efficiency specified
by the staff itself, women over thirty were as good as-if not better
than-those under that age. The result was in sharp contrast to the
1 47
THE AMERICAN YEARS
staff's expectations, but, the findings being their own, they trusted
them.
This, however, was only winning half the battle. The task still
remained not only of informing but-as it turned out-of convinc-
ing those members of the managerial staff who had not participated
in the research. They continued to remain rigidly set against the
employment of the older women. They too had to be re-educated.
Before going into this phase of the project, the staff sought a sample
reaction. They selected a representative forelady and asked her how
one of the older workers in her unit was getting along. S~e an-
swered that this woman was one of the mainstays of her assembly
line. Similar queries about each of the eight older workers in her
department of seventy workers brought similar glowing reports.
Since this forelady had expressed such satisfaction with the older
workers in her department, she was asked if she'd be willing to use
any additional women over thirty to fill still-open places in her unit.
The suggestion shocked her; she rejected it. Her reason was that
older workers would create problems and not solve them. They
would take her time and only produce inferior quality. Women
over thirty, moreover, were not strong enough to stand the pace.
It was obvious that the forelady's own satisfaction with the older
women in her unit had no influence on her stereotype. Unaware of
her inconsistency, she could be objective in evaluating specific indi-
viduals but not in her general view of the same matter. The older
women she knew continued to be "exceptions." The vigor of her
reaction made it apparent that the supervisors could not be won
over as individuals and that re-education of the entire supervisory
staff as a group would be required. This was undertaken, and later
group decisions were reached recommending that an experiment
be made in the training of new, older workers to see if they could
make a record consistent with that of older women already in the
plant. In this way, the idea of hiring older women workers gradu-
ally came to be accepted.
This experiment demonstrated that the manner in which an expe-
rience is introduced functions as a decisive factor. When the mem-
bers of a group participate in a program to discover the facts about
Action Research in Industry
their own beliefs, the findings they make will stimulate changes in
their conduct. The experiences they acquire-and share with others
-as part of fact-finding research make possible the establishment of
new behavior patterns which otherwise would be rejected.
French recalls that Lewin locked him in my office in New York
and made him dictate an article 1 on this experience in changing the
stereotype toward older workers-an incident which, French says,
"illustrates his ability to see and appreciate a potential contribution
even when he first heard it as only a casual anecdote. Who else
would have been so ready to say, 'That ought to be published,'
when it did not conform at all to the conventional methodological
criteria?"
149
THE AMERICAN YEARS
bodied in the contrast between the previous high status and present
reduced status.
Between 1940 and 1946 a number of small-group studies had
been made to discover if it were possible to transfer workers more
smoothly from old jobs to new ones, and if technological changes in
job methods could be introduced without the usual manifestations
of hostility and fall-off in production. These inquiries suggested
that participation methods might provide solutions to the problem
of overcoming resistance to change. An experiment along these lines
was planned involving job changes. ·
An appropriate situation did not arise until the fall of 1947, after
Lewin died. French, aided by Lester Coch, the personnel manager,
was able to carry out the experiment as planned. The investigation
called for introducing the required changes in jobs in three different
ways, each involving a different degree of employee collaboration
in working out details of the proposed new job assignments.
The first group did not participate in any way: the workers were
told of the changes in their jobs, and the production department
explained the new piece rate. The second group was asked to
appoint representatives to meet with management to consider meth-
ods, piece rates, and other problems created by the job changes. The
third group consisted of every member of the unit-not just the
representatives. They met with management, took an active part in
detailed discussions about all aspects of the change, made a number
of recommendations, and even helped plan the most efficient meth-
ods for doing the new job.
The differences in outcome of the three procedures were clear-
cut and dramatic. Average production in the non-participation
group dropped 20 per cent immediately and did not regain the pre-
change level. Nine per cent of the group quit. Morale fell sharply,
as evidenced by marked hostility toward the supervisor, by slow-
downs, by complaints to the union, and by other instances of ag-
gressive behavior.
The group which participated through representatives required
two weeks to recover its pre-change output. Their attitude was co-
operative, and none of the members of the group quit their jobs.
Action Research in Industry
115
TESTING THEORY
IN ACTION
When America entered World War II, the resources of the social
and behavioral disciplines became an important part of the mobiliza-
tion effort. The demand by many military and other government
programs for professional advice forced the experts to evolve new
ways of tackling problems and analyzing and reporting results.
Moreover, these data and recommendations had to be communi-
cated in a way which could be understood and used by laymen who
had to act on them.
For many social scientists, the transition from safe academic work
to an immediate concern with the hazardous application of research
findings in making major policies was radical. But for Lewin and the
majority of his colleagues, the transition was a logical consequence of
the main thrust of their previous work. Thus they were readier than
most others in the hastily improvised circumstances to investigate
"real life" problems with more scientific rigor and confidence.
Lewin was limited in his early efforts because, not yet an Ameri-
can citizen, he could not get security clearance. But on January 5,
1940, he sent me a handwritten note saying, "I am a citizen! Hur-
rah!"
Soon Lewin and his group were taking up such questions as:
153
THE AMERICAN YEARS
What was the state of morale and its probable future course both in
enemy countries and on the home front? What techniques of psy-
chological warfare would most effectively weaken the enemy's will
to resist? What kind of leadership in military units was likely to be
the most successful? How could more such leaders be found and
trained? How could home-front consumption of foods in short sup-
ply be cut back and the use of more available foods be encouraged?
How did human relations in office and factory affect war prod"!lc-
tion in America's industries? What measures could be taken to care
for and psychologically rehabilitate those injured in combat?
Solid answers to such questions, when translated into decisions,
policies, and programs, might exercise a profound influence on the
course and outcome of the war. All of them required seasoned judg-
ment, based on factual knowledge in the behavioral sciences. Team
effort was important, for, by its nature, the program usually re-
quired the contribution of more than one specialty or discipline.
Little wonder, then, that the earliest, most continuous, ·and heaviest
demand for aid was made on those who had had the most experience
with psychological research in real-life situations and who were
accustomed to working as teams: cultural anthropologists, such as
Margaret Mead; public-opinion researchers such as Samuel Stouffer,
Paul F. Lazarsfeld, and Rensis Likert; psychologists such as Mur-
ray and MacKinnon, who had worked in the Harvard Psychologi-
cal Clinic and later played such an important role in the Office of
Strategic Services (OSS); and Lewin and his Iowa group.
John MacMillan, of the Office of Naval Research, invited a group
of social scientists-Lewin among them-to review research propos-
als and discuss general ONR policy. According to Rensis Likert,
another member of the committee that was formed, "Lewin's ability
to identify the major problems on which research was needed made
him an invaluable member. Frequently when a methodology was
inadequate he devised a procedure as well as a general theory of
conceptualization to deal with the particular problem on which the
research was being done. Lewin was much more interested in
having significant research started on major social problems, even if
the approach was crude, than on unimportant problems with nice,
1 54
Testing Theory in Action
1 SS
THE AMERICAN YEARS
157
THE AMERICAN YEARS
159
CHAPTER
16
THE SEARCH
FOR HELP
At the beginning of his search for funds, Lewin first came to the
Field Foundation, then headed by the late Marshall Field, Jr. Think-
ing I was acquainted with Field, he asked for an introduction. That
I did not know the philanthropist did not deter Lewin once he had
made up his mind that the Field Foundation was a potential source
of help for his project. He phoned Mr. Field directly from my office
while my attention was engaged in another matter. I returned to
hear: "Mr. Marshall Field, please. Kurt La-veen speaking."
This unhesitating directness did not bring Mr. Field to the tele-
phone, but it got Lewin an appointment with Maxwell Hahn, direc-
tor of Field's foundation. Hahn's memory of his first meeting with
Lewin is vivid. He describes him coming "shyly" into the rather
modest offices of the Foundation in New York "Unassuming and
self-deprecating, Professor Lewin outlined convincingly his ideas
for an institute to help democracy learn how to handle its group
problems more efficiently and less prejudicially." Indeed, Lewin
was so persuasive that Hahn insisted that his visitor join him at home
for dinner and keep talking-an event, Hahn states, quite unheard of
in foundation circles.
160
The Search for Help
Soon after, Hahn went to Iowa City to evi.J.luate Lewin and his
ideas and came away confirmed in his initial impression. What espe-
cially caught his interest was a factory in which Alex Bavelas was
working on an action-research experiment to improve employee
morale. Hahn reported to the Foundation that Lewin merited its
support.
"Although Kurt did not know it," Hahn comments, "he ap-
proached us when the Foundation's funds were extremely limited
and had been overcommitted." Yet he undertook to provide Lewin
a grant of $3o,ooo to be paid in two installments of lxs,ooo a year,
the money to be used to set up the proposed center. This was in
1 943·
The next year Lewin unexpectedly found an additional sponsor
for his institute, the American Jewish Congress. Lewin at various
times lectured to community organizations on minority problems
and intergroup relations. He had published articles on these subjects.
Some of these came to the attention of Rabbi Stephen S. Wise,
then President of the American Jewish Congress, which had voted
in the spring of 1944 to establish a research institute of exactly the
kind Lewin was projecting. It was to be especially concerned with
the causes of group prejudice and finding the methods that would
be effective in eradicating them. Dr. Wise saw in Lewin the kind of
scientist such a project would need and suggested that Rabbi Irving
Miller, the Congress vice-president, explore with Lewin the possibil-
ity of his taking on this pioneer job.
It took Miller some time to reach Lewin, who was mostly in
Washington and out of reach in the secret offices of the ass. When
Miller caught up with him by phone during one of his brief visits to
Iowa, he agreed to see Miller after returning to Washington.
Because of Lewin's relations with the ass the encounter took on a
cloak-and-dagger quality which today seems comic. Lewin said he
would be arriving on an early train; the location of the ass being
classified, Lewin had Miller meet him for breakfast in the Savarin
Restaurant of Union Station at seven o'clock of a hot July morning.
Lewin listened somewhat distractedly to Miller's proposition
regarding the project of the American Jewish Congress to set up a
161
THE AMERICAN YEARS
164
The Search for Help
Berkeley found the idea promising, but needed time to think it
through before asking the California Board of Regents to act on it.
Carl Compton, M.I.T. president, responded similarly to McGregor.
At this time Lewin's position at Iowa was becoming difficult. His
desire to set up a special kind of research center was no secret there,
and many felt that he could not possibly discharge his duties at the
Child Welfare Research Center and work at all the other tasks he
was taking on. Iowa authorities wanted to be advised of his inten-
tions.
Lacking a definite commitment from either California or M.I.T.,
Lewin's mind was not made up, but, with the Iowa people pressing
him, he called Douglas McGregor at M.I.T. to ask for a definite
yes or no. McGregor again got in touch with President Compton,
and Compton, after a brief hesitation, answered "yes." Lewin was
sent a formal invitation to set up the Research Center for Group
Dynamics at M.I.T. His predilection for California's climate de-
layed his acceptance a day or two, but accept he did and gratefully.
Two days later, Tolman called him with the word that President
Sproul had mailed the formal invitation to set up the center at the
University of California. But Lewin had already accepted M.I.T.'s
offer and had begun to collect a staff and the balance of the money
needed to support the institute.
CHAPTER
17
THE DYNAMICS
UNDERLYING
GROUP LIFE
group leader who affected his students' learning not merely by his
proficiency in his subject, but also by his skill at increasing their
motivation, encouraging their active participation, and improving
their esprit de corps. Lewin's pioneering research in group behavior
thus drew upon the experience of educators in deciding upon and
developing topics for research and in establishing a strong interest
among social psychologists and teachers.
Finally, there was industrial management, or, more broadly, the
management of people in large organizations, whether profit-
making, governmental, educational or medical. All have the same
responsibility to direct and coordinate the behavior of people. They
share a common interest in finding new ways to get people to
attain their potential and work at their best.
From the interaction of all these closely related and overlapping
disciplines, group dynamics emerged as a definite field of study.
What, then, is group dynamics? As the word "dynamics" indicates,
it is a discipline which concerns itself with the positive and negative
forces at work in human groups. The group modifies the behavior
of its individual members. A person's role and rank in it, for example,
may determine how others behave toward him: whether they treat
him with deference or cause him unhappiness by excluding him.
Groups exert on members influences which may be harmful or bene-
ficial. A better understanding of the principles of collective behav-
ior, therefore, might show how groups could be made to serve more
socially desirable ends. Accordingly, Lewin advocated the scientific
study of the group as a configuration of a variety of forces.
He undertook to employ the methods of science, as he conceived
them, to study the dynamics of every kind of group. His first use of
the term "group dynamics" in print was in a 1939 article in which he
wrote that the purpose of his experiment "would be to give insight
into the underlying group dynamics." 1 Lewin and his associates
saw that in a group each member recognizes the other members as
persons on whom he depends to a definite degree. The group is
therefore a psychologically organic whole, rather than a simple
collection of individuals. With this 1939 paper, Lewin began a
1 "Experiments in Social Space," Harvard Educational Review, 1939, 9, 11-31.
168
The Dynamics Underlying Group Life
renders a group cohesive is, as Lewin pointed out, not how similar
or dissimilar its members are-for example, in their attitudes-but
how dynamically interdependent they are. Out of reciprocal de-
pendence for the achievement of goals there arises a readiness to
share chores and challenges, and even to reconcile personality
clashes.
A group does not have to be composed of members who are
greatly similar; it may be a "Gestalt" -a whole containing dissimilar
parts. "For example," said Lewin, "a man, wife, and baby within
one family may show greater dissimilarity to one another than the
man to other men of his age and social class, or the woman to other
women, or this baby to other infants. 2 Moreover, it is typical of
well-organized groups with a high degree of unity to include a vari-
ety of members who are different or who have different functions
within the whole. Not similarity, but a certain interdependence of
members constitutes a group."
Lewin also pointed out that similarity can exist without inter-
dependence just as it can exist with it. He remarked that dynamic
wholes have properties which are different from the properties of
either their parts or the sum of their parts. This did not mean to him
that the "whole" is invariably more than the sum of its parts. The
whole, he maintained, is not necessarily superior, nor does it add up
to "more." His general formulation was simple, "The whole is dif-
ferent from the sum of its parts: it has definite properties of its own."
Lewin observed that a person is apt more often to be a member of
a group to which he feels similar or to which he wishes to be similar
than to groups upon whom his dependence is greatest.
Belonging is signified by adherence to the group code. Those
who belong "obey." Thus group pressures regulate the conduct of
the would-be deviant member. He stays among those with whom
he feels he "belongs" even if their conduct seems unfair and their
pressure unfriendly. To change his conduct or point of view inde-
pendently of the group would get him into trouble with his fellow
group members.
2 Kurt Lewin, "Field Theory and Experiment in Social Psychology," American
Journal of Sociology, 1939,44,868-897.
qo
The Dynamics Underlying Group Life
171
THE AMERICAN YEARS
118
ACTION RESEARCH
IN COMMUNITY
AFFAIRS
1 74
Action Researcb in Community Affairs
could be used in new and more effective ways to deal with practical
problems of group and community life, he remained unmoved by
arguments of those A.J.C. members who feared that social scientists
would "try to tell people what to do" or by those "practical-minded"
persons who brushed off social sciences as "merely common sense."
In a letter to Rabbi Wise, Lewin declared, "We Jews will have to
fight for ourselves and we will do so strongly and with good con-
science. We also lmow that the fight of the Jews is a part of the fight
of all minorities for democratic equality of rights and opportunities,
and that the liberation of the minorities will in fact be the greatest
liberation of the majority. If we establish a Commission on Commu-
nity Interrelations we do so with the knowledge that the Jews can-
not win their fight without the active help of those groups within
the majority which are of good will. It wants to work hand in hand
with these groups. It will not try to use non-Jewish friends as a
front to spare Jews from doing any part of the fighting that they
themselves should do; but it will try to get positive cooperation
between all groups in those areas of community living which count
most."
Planning sessions were held in Cambridge, Washington, and New
Yark during several months, with Lewin constantly on the go
between the three cities. His physical endurance was a source of
amazement to his associates. Hendry remarked, "I remember him
saying one day that during the First World War he sometimes
became so weary that he actually succeeded in sleeping while he
marched in a column of soldiers." After one strenuous organiza-
tional day in New Yark, Lewin almost repeated this feat.
Lewin spoke often of the hopeful role of group dynamics and
action research in human affairs. But he cautioned that the plans for
it depended on discovering through scientific study the answers to
such questions as the following:
175
THE AMERICAN YEARS
1 77
CHAPTER
119
LAUNCHING
GROUP DYNAMICS
AT M.I.T.
While C.C.I. was being established, Lewin was also busy in Cam-
bridge launching the M.I.T. Research Center for Group Dynamics
and assembling its Advisory Board. At a dinner he gave for board
members, President Compton spoke briefly about the future of the
social sciences and the research Center for Group Dynamics. Comp-
ton described his pride in having the center on the M.I.T. campus,
adding that he hoped no one would ask for at least three years what
the name meant, why the Center belonged at M.I.T., and what sort
of work it was doing.
In staffing the new Center, Lewin relied heavily on the member-
ship of the Iowa City Hot-Air Club-a phenomenon on which
Hendry too would remark early in his association with Lewin.
Once a student-associate-colleague of Kurt Lewin, always so! And
though President Compton might be unsure of what was to go on at
the M.I.T. Center, Lewin was not. In an article published in th'e
September 1945 issue of Sociometry, he outlined what he conceived
to be the objectives of the institution.
He wanted to reach beyond the mere description of group life
q8
Launcbi11g Group Dynamics at M.l.T.
and to investigate the conditions and forces which bring about
change or resist it. He meant to look at group life in its totality, not
just at individual instances of it. He insisted that any research started
at the Center would have to take into consideration all aspects of
group behavior. In addition, any study put in motion would seek to
employ new approaches, avoiding hackneyed methods as well as
traditional categories and points of view.
The chief methodological approach would be that of developing
actual group experiments, especially experiments of change, to be
carried on in the laboratory or in the field. The importance of theo-
rizing and conceptualizing was emphasized by Lewin. The Center
was not going to concern itself with the mere gathering of data;
indeed, he hoped that theorizing would steadily keep ahead of all
data gathering. He felt it necessary that no field experiment be made
until everything was "ready" for it, because the efficacy of field
experiments depended so greatly on just the right social situation.
He wanted to make sure that his staff of experimenters were
themselves an integral part of the situation they proposed to explore.
Only as they themselves were involved in the planning and execu-
tion of data gathering could the experimenters attain the insight and
interest required for success.
Finally, Lewin hoped to avoid any idea that the purpose of the
Research Center was to train experts in "brainwashing" or "group
manipulation." Experiments conducted by the staff and students at
the Center should not only have for their purpose overcoming phil-
osophical prejudices and technical difficulties; they should also be
justifiable as honorable and necessary social procedures. "Group
manipulation" would directly contradict the purposes of the Re-
search Center for Group Dynamics, and Lewin wanted no part of it.
He also formulated his justification for locating the Center at
M.I.T., rather than at a large university with a strong program in
the social sciences and the humanities. "The main purpose of engi-
neering," he declared, "is the release of human energies and the
enhancement of man's power of dealing with nature-a goal for
which the development of machines has provided the principal
means. In the course of doing this, engineering has not completely
179
THE AMERICAN YEARS
ing about the same time as the Lewins. Festinger and Lippitt came a
little later. Cartwright was the last, and the group celebrated with a
festive get-together at the Lewin home Thanksgiving Day.
All five faculty members settled within a few blocks of each other
in Newtonville, so that they could get together informally in the
evenings for work and conversation. The following morning they
usually commuted together to Cambridge. The staff Lewin had
chosen were all under thirty-five years of age. All had worked with
him at Iowa, and all had participated in one way or another in the
research that laid the groundwork for the new Center. They shared
a Lewinian point of view, but each brought a particular specializa-
tion in such things as personality development, intergroup relations,
laboratory methods, action research, training in field experimenta-
tion, and survey techniques.
The famous Tuesday seminar, or Quasselstrippe, which the staff
had been part of in Iowa, was re-established. The discussions ini-
tially centered on Lewin's developing ideas about group dynamics,
his notions of social space as contrasted to life space, his involvement
in expanding the theory of quasi-stationary equilibria to the process
of social change, the growth of prejudice in young children, the
origin of self-hate, and other practical social problems. Informal
meetings were held almost anywhere and at any time of the day or
night. Discussions took place while driving through heavy traffic,
during evenings at the Lewin home, or on train trips between Bos-
ton and New York. The pace for Lewin was particularly hectic
since he was carrying the major responsibility for organizing both
the M.I.T. Center and the Commission on Community Interrela-
tions in New York. The staff helped in such diverse activities as
planning the research for both organizations and simultaneously
establishing the doctoral training program at the university.
M.I.T. provided an ideal institutional setting for Lewin. Its flexi-
bilicy- with respect to administrative arrangements permitted him to
design the Center's program as he thought best. He was compara-
tively free to pursue his interests wherever they might lead and he
responded to this opportunity with great excitement. The Center
was located in the Department of Economics and Social Sciences,
which had little concern for disciplinary boundaries within the
_o_
THE AMERICAN YEARS
social sciences. This was perfect for Lewin, who, being eclectic
about approaches to design and methodology, found this. setting
ideal for the varied research interests and preferences of his group.
Lewin worked closely with Professors Douglas McGregor,
Charles Myers, and other faculty members of the Department of
Economics and Social Sciences at M.I.T. Equally close working
relations were established with Henry Murray, Gordon Allport,
and others at Harvard. Several pre-doctoral students, who were also
research assistants, soon arrived and joined the seminar sessions,
which now grew to a dozen or more. The pre-doctoral group took
about half of their courses at Harvard under an inter-university
arrangement for graduate work between the two universities.
The offices of Lewin and his staff were close to each other and
there was a great deal of running back and forth between rooms.
Lewin frequently stuck his head into one of the offices and asked
for help in writing a research proposal, interviewing a graduate stu-
dent, or acting as host to some prominent visitor.
An increasing number of students came from the Harvard Grad-
uate School to take courses at the new center at M.I.T., and Lewin
was pleased when at the end of the first year he was able to get
additional funds to add John R. P. French, Jr., to the faculty.
French had studied under Lewin and, like the others, found it easy
to adjust to the shift from student to colleague.
Among the faculty members relatively little interpersonal com-
petitiveness was evident compared to what one might have expected.
Lippitt believes that it was a combination of Lewin's leadership,
and the cohesion generated by the sense of the importance of their
mission, that reduced the frequency and intensity of interpersonal
and role conflicts.
"Those of us who assembled in Cambridge at the end of the war
to embark on this new venture thought of ourselves as pioneers,"
says Cartwright.1 "We were members of an organization with no
history or established tradition and with few precedents anywhere
in the social sciences; we were committed to the creation of new
1 D. Cartwright, "Some Things Learned," Journal of Social Issues, 1958, Supple-
ment Series No. n.
r82
Launching Group Dynamics at M.l.T.
IQO
CHAPTER
20
LAUNCHING
PROGRAMS OF
COMMUNITY
ACTION
against prejudice. Lewin was pleased with the staff proposal to nar-
row their studies to three priority research areas. These were:
Lewin was less pleased with the staff's working conditions. At first
it was assigned space in the New York City headquarters of the
A.J .C. overlooking Central Park at Columbus Circle. But this grew
crowded and forbidding as C. C. I.'s staff grew in size and complexity
(for instance, when a distinguished advisory council of behavioral
scientists was added to the permanent staff). New and better office
space became an urgent need. It was supplied in the form of a loft at
soth Street and Broadway, which offered more space but hardly
more attractiveness than the crowded office they were leaving.
Then the staff had a piece of good luck.
Lewin persuaded his friend and fellow refugee Marcel Breuer,
who had found a place with Walter Gropius in the Harvard School
of Architecture, to take a look at C.C.I.'s loft and design its offices
and furniture at a nominal fee. Breuer projected within the decrepit
loft a layout with magnificent color combinations, specially built
files, and a large library, honeycombed with shelving on all four
sides and having a huge conference table in the center. Visitors from
Launching Programs of Community Action
many distant places soon came to view the offices which Breuer had
designed for C.C.I.
For its motto, Lewin proposed a quotation from the Hebrew
sage, Hillel:
If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
If I am for myself alone, what am I?
And if not now, when?
Lewin felt the lines had a special aptness. "In regard to research, the
first and second lines say that we are ready to investigate ourselves,
our ideals, and our conduct as seriously and as conscientiously as we
are ready to investigate non-Jewish groups. Jews are a small minor-
ity, but the conduct of the Jewish child and adult, of the Jewish
leader and follower, the Jewish businessman and rabbi, is at least
as essential for Jewish fate and for the relations between Jews and
non-Jews as is the conduct of any non-Jewish group. The last line of
our motto says: The Commission means action, and action now. If
we speak of research, we mean 'action research,' that is, action on a
realistic level, action that is always followed by self-critical objective
reconnaissance and evaluation of results. Since we like to learn
rapidly, we will nt;,ver be afraid to face our shortcomings. We aim
at 'no action without research; no research without action.' "
Lewin's penchant for the symbolic representation of social forces
had long been demonstrated on blackboards in the classroom. He
now provided C.C.I. with a unique symbol, composed of a superim-
posed circle, crossed lines and an arrow. The circle, Lewin said,
signified a community bound together in common interests; the
crossed lines were the barriers-walls of prejudice, intolerance, and
misunderstanding of cultural differences; the arrow represented
facts in action research. This partnership was to be made available
by the C.C.I. to all communities throughout the United States.
Stuart Cook came from the Air Corps to serve as co-director of
C.C.I. One was needed in view of Lewin's multiplying responsibili-
ties at M.I.T. and C.C.I.'s growing action-research program, which
included opening offices in Boston and Chicago. Among the other
psychologists who served full or part time were Alex Bavelas,
Barbara Bellow, Milton Blum, Dorwin Cartwright, Isidor Chein,
193
THE AMERICAN YEARS
1 94
Launching Programs of Community Action
1 95
THE AMERICAN YEARS
Two decades later the cry of "Black Power" and the development
of the Black Nationalist Movement has shown how critical the issue
was-and would increasingly become.
197
THE AMERICAN YEAHS
199
THE AMERICAN YEARS
200
CHAPTER
211
SOME MAJOR
ACTION-RESEARCH
PROJECTS
Two weeks after the first staff member was employed, C.C.I. was
reluctantly involved in its first project, a case of vandalism in Coney
Island. Efforts of Lewin to delay action were not successful. The
A.J.C. insisted on C.C.I.'s help and thus the Coney Island project
became C.C.I.'s initial "assignment." Others followed quickly. The
Horace Mann School in New York asked for an evaluation of its
intercultural program. This study included one of the earliest tests
of the effectiveness of intergroup activity on the attitudes of partici-
pants. During the same period, three other inquiries were launched
-two in Boston and one in a New Jersey industrial town-into the.
attitude of individual Jews toward their own group as measured by
synagogue attendance, observance of dietary laws and religious hol-
idays, friendship with non-Jews, attitude toward intermarriage, and
affiliation with Jewish and mixed social clubs.
In Chicago, C.C.I.'s Midwest Regional office probed the roots of
an attack on the Jewish center in Hyde Park, consulted with school
officials concerned over Negro-white tensions in nearby Gary,
201
THE AMERICAN YEARS
Gang Behavior
An "incident" between Jewish and non-Jewish teenagers on Yom
Kippur was the basis for the first major C.C.I. study. A gang of
Italian Catholic teenagers had disturbed the religious services of
Yom Kippur at a synagogue in Coney Island. Though the incident
had occurred before C.C.I. was ready to take on any assignments,
the leaders of the A.J .C. felt that public interest in the event pro-
vided an unusual opportunity to demonstrate the value of a scien-
tific approach to this lcind of situation. They urged Lewin to take
the event for his first action-research project. He agreed reluctantly,
for at the time his staff consisted of only two persons. He assem-
bled a task force including Jews, Protestants, Catholics, and Ne-
groes. He drew them from group workers and psychologists on a
part-time basis. All had been trained in research in human relations
and were able to talk the language of both youths and grownups.
Their first step was to halt the legal action against the four young
men arrested for creating the disturbance. The complaint was with-
drawn and the boys were put in charge of the local priest and the
Catholic Big Brothers.
C.C.I.'s next step was to canvass local attitudes and to involve as·
many citizens of the community as possible, since such participation
would make action toward improvement more likely. A survey of
representative community attitudes indicated that the disturbance
had not resulted from organized anti-Semitism but was rather a
symptom of an undirected, general sentiment of hostility. Aggres-
sion happened to turn on Jews on Yom Kippur because on this holy
day the Jews were more conspicuous.
20'2
THE AMERICAN YEARS
205
THE AMERICAN YEARS
Another and quite different critical issue was presented to the C.C.I.
staff for action. To find the answer Gerhart Saenger and Emily
Gilbert 2 set up a study which sought the facts about the department-
store practice of not hiring Negroes as sales clerks because, as the
store management put it, "our customers wouldn't stand for it."
The researchers first interviewed store customers who had dealt
with Negro clerks and others who had dealt with white clerks at
work near Negroes. In addition, interviews were held on sidewalks
with white persons in order to assemble street samples whose re-
sponses could be used as a control.
All respondents who showed signs of prejudice were asked di-
rectly whether they would continue to shop in stores that hired
Negro salespeople. To the question "What would you think if all
New York department stores hired Negro sales persons?" 64 per
cent of the shoppers and 75 per cent of the street sample said they
would approve. Of the group observed being waited on by Negro
clerks, 20 per cent said they disapproved, whereas 2 I per cent of the
group observed with white clerks and I 4 per cent of the street
sample said they would resent being waited on by Negroes. The
rest had no opinion.
Among the respondents were a dozen persons who expressed ex-
treme prejudice and said they would not shop in a store which hired
Negro sales help. But five of these had earlier been observed shop-
206
Some Major Action-Research Projects
Group Loyalty
The active role taken by members of Lewin's M.I.T. staff in C.C.I.
research is illustrated in a study by Festinger based on the belief that
fellow members of the Jewish group were loyal to one another.
This belief was demonstrated to be a mistaken one in an experiment
on the "Role of Belongingness in a Voting Situation." F estinger
brought together several groups of college girls from in and around
Boston, strangers to one another, with an equal number of Catholics
and Jews in each group. To each group he assigned two of his
assistants, in the role of students. All of the girls in the experiment
were identified by numbers only and were instructed not to reveal
their names.
Then they were asked to nominate a "president" for their several
groups on the basis of first impressions. They nominated by number
and their voting was secret. (Festinger was able to identify each·
voter.) After the ballots were collected, it was announced-falsely-
that the two assistants posing as college girls had been nominated.
Then a vote was taken, but by design it was pretended that because
of some confusion in the counting a second ballot would have to be
held.
Between the first and the second ballot it was suggested in an
THE AMERICAN YEARS
offhand way that one candidate was Jewish and the other Catholic.
(The two assistants posed alternately as Jew and Catholic to nullify
personality differences.) The results showed that Catholics who
had first voted for Jews tended to switch their votes to the Catholic
candidate, but the Jews who had voted for the Catholic made no
significant change. In personal interviews with Festinger, both the
Catholic and the Jewish students had expressed liking for members
of their own group. The Catholics alone, however, carried prefer-
ences through into action.
Integrated Housing
C.C.I. staff members had long recognized that just throwing people
together-commingling Negroes and whites, Christians and Jews,
Puerto Ricans and New Englanders-did not necessarily render
their feelings toward one another kindlier. Lewin maintained that it
was the manner in which the diverse people came together, especially
whether or not they met as equals, which determined whether
understanding improved or tensions heightened. What, Lewin
asked, is the effect of opening public housing to all races and reli-
gions? Is it an antidote to the fear and hatred that exists among
many of New York City's different ethnic groups? Does the quality
of status defined by living together in the same building build
healthier attitudes? Does one really know?
Lewin raised these questions at the time when public housing was
being projected as a means of providing decent housing for slum
dwellers. Negroes and whites were encouraged to rent space in the
new projects, and their proximity offered fresh opportunities to
observe interracial relations. A new concept in America's postwar
culture, interracial housing offered two types of occupancy. One
segregated Negroes and whites in separate buildings in a "checker-
board" pattern within the project. The other integrated all build-
ings on a first-come, first-served basis without regard to color.
To appraise the effects of these diverse situations, C.C.I. commis-
zo8
Some Major Action-Research Projects
sioned a study by two part-time staff members, Morton Deutsch
and Mary Evans Collins. They selected four interracial housing
projects, 3 two integrated, and two "checkerboard." Interviews
were planned to draw out white attitudes toward the Negro neigh-
bors and the whites' relations with the Negroes. These interviews
were designed to probe deeply and lasted up to two hours. They
were held with roo white housewives and 25 Negro housewives. In
addition, 24 Negro and white adolescent boys and girls were
interviewed.
The results disclosed a sharp contrast in attitudes between the
residents of integrated and segregated housing projects, even
though the buildings matched in every particular of physical facili-
ties, environment, and Negro-white ratios and differed only in oc-
cupancy patterns. In the segregated projects, resentments toward
Negroes were much sharper and anti-Negro prejudice stronger;
indeed, the white residents expressed a strong preference for still
greater segregation.
On the other hand, where whites came to know Negroes as next-
door neighbors, they shared a growing sense of common humanity
which relaxed the tensions they had brought with them and replaced
antagonism with friendliness. The change was expressed (among
other responses) by their preference for more and more widely
integrated housing. Also, they drew more closely together and be-
came more genuinely good neighbors. The answers of housewives
in the segregated projects, on the other hand, showed them to be
more peevish, suspicious, and hostile toward others, including other
whites.
The indication was that the manner in which people live together
in a common dwelling can be a strong factor in shaping their rela-
tions as members of groups. Group cohesiveness and morale were
higher in the integrated than in the segregated projects. White res-
idents in integrated houses, despite initial forebodings, came to like
living in them; many of them expressed pride in their building's
"democracy."
3 This study was planned with Lewin but carried out after his death.
209
THE AMERICAN YEARS
210
Some Major Action-Researcb Projects
own form and function. It was understaffed, with a high work load.
Nevertheless, Lewin was determined to try out a new design for
leadership training. Despite lack of money, know-how, and ade-
quate staff, the help requested by the Connecticut State Commis-
sion was to be provided.
Lewin's own group at M.I.T. had already assembled a veritable
stockpile of general ideas about group behavior from leadership
studies with the Boy Scouts and in industry. These he believed were
ready to be tested by experiments on community action. He pro-
posed that the Connecticut training program be pre-designed as a
workshop in which a "change" experiment could be conducted.
The workshop was simultaneously to train its members, assemble
observations on the whys and wherefores of the changes that devel-
oped in the trainees, measure their extent, and analyze the outcome.
In sum, the workshop would simultaneously train the delegates and
provide research data on what produced the changes.
The first task was to assemble a trained staff. As a hard core there
were Ronald Lippitt, Leland Bradford, and Kenneth Benne, who
headed a large team of trainers, observers, and researchers under
Lewin's direction. With the three leaders, Lewin began to work out
the design for the workshop to be held in June 1946 at Teachers'
College, New Britain, Connecticut.
The program called for two weeks of training for forty-one hand-
picked students, of whom most were professional educators or social-
agency workers. Only a few were labor leaders and businessmen.
About half the trainees were Negroes and Jews, with the sensitivities
characteristics of both groups. \Vhat the participants were hoping
to gain from the workshop was sought by means of interviews.
Their expectations varied, but generally they hoped to develop
greater skill in dealing with other people, more reliable methods of
changing people's attitudes, insight into reasons for resisting change,
a more scientific understanding of the causes of prejudice, and a
more reliable insight into their own attitudes and values.
The workshop began with a program that encouraged discussion
and decision by the entire group, launching at once the practice of
initiating common activities. The staff treated the members as peers.
2I I
THE AMERICAN YEARS
All were introduced in about three minutes. The leaders of the train-
ing and research teams briefly explained the recording equipment
and the other data-collecting devices and how to use them. Fifteen
minutes later the meeting became the workshop.
During their training period, most participants returned home for
an evening's visit with their families. Those who remained on
campus had nothing to do but sit around, and they asked if they
might sit in on the feedback meetings in which the research staff
(Deutsch, Murray Horwitz, Arnold Meier, and Melvin Seeman)
reported on the unprocessed data they had collected in observing
the three groups of trainees. Most of the staff feared that it would be
harmful to have the trainees sit in while their behavior was being
discussed. Lewin, however, saw no reason why the researchers
should keep data to themselves, nor why feedback to the trainees
should not be helpful. The result-in the words of Bradford-was
like a "tremendous electric charge . . . as people reacted to data
about their own behavior." Thus, the role of feedback in aT (train-
ing) group was discovered.
As Lippitt describes it,6 "Sometime during the evening, an ob-
server made some remarks about the behavior of one of the three
persons who were sitting in-a woman trainee. She broke in to dis-
agree with the observation and described it from her point of view.
For a while there was quite an active dialogue between the research
observer, the trainer, and the trainee about the interpretation of the
event, with Kurt an active prober, obviously enjoying this different
source of data that had to be coped with and integrated.
"At the end of the evening, the trainees asked if they could come
back for the next meeting at which their behavior would be eval-
uated. Kurt, feeling that it had been a valuable contribution rather
than an intrusion, enthusiastically agreed to their return. The next
night at least half of the fifty or sixty participants were there as the
result of the grapevine reporting of the activity by the three
delegates.
"The evening session from then on became the significant learn-
212
Some Major Action-Research Projects
ing experience of the day, with the focus on actual behavioral
events and with active dialogue about differences of interpretation
and observations of the events by those who had participated in
them.
"The staff were equally enthusiastic, for they found the process a
unique way of securing data and interpreting behavior. In addition,
the staff discovered that feedback had the effect of making partici-
pants more sensitive to their own conduct and brought criticism
into the open in a healthy and constructive way."
In addition to these new, individual feedback sessions, the partici-
pants in each group spent about 1 8 per cent of their time appraising
their own behavior. They held these sessions in the evening for an
hour and a half.
When the workshop terminated, both staff and participants were
satisfied that it had been a success. But the real test of the training's
effectiveness was how well the trainees used their new knowledge
and sl{ills back home. Six months after they had gone back to work,
they and their co-workers were interviewed. The responses dis-
closed that 72 per cent reported that they were using the new
methods-role playing being the most frequently cited. About 75
per cent declared that they were now more skillful in improving
group relations. They spoke also of their own increased sensitivity
to the feelings of others and of their greater optimism about making
progress. From every source came reports of changed performance
in working with people, in planning action, in bridging the gaps
between good intentions and actual behavior.
A consequence of the Connecticut leadership training workshop
was the establishment the following summer of the National Train-
ing Laboratories (N.T.L.). It was housed in the Gould Academy,
at Bethel, Maine, and financed initially by a grant Lewin obtained
from the Office of Naval Research. Before the laboratory could
hold its first session, Lewin died, never to know that this brainchild
of his would become a permanent organization of national scope
and that it would lead to some of the most significant contributions
to the scientific study of human relationships.
Carl Rogers recently wrote that "sensitivity training is perhaps
213
THE Al\IERICAN YEARS
214
Some Major Action-Researcb Projects
this approach. Few people cared about1 the experts' work, which
was expensive, and public interest in it waned. Eventually the ex-
perts' report was delivered, filed, and forgotten. It rarely led to
action.
Various urban communities put a considerable amount of pres-
sure on Lewin and C.C.I. (mostly through members of the A.J.C.)
to provide help. A particular problem was discriminatory practices
in the community. C.C.I.'s small staff could not respond to all the
requests for help in studying local discrimination, and those making
the requests had only vague notions about the scope of the preju-
dice of which they complained and about where it was most wide-
spread. It was necessary to create a dynamic nexus between fact
finding and action. It was this search which led to the devising of the
community self-survey.
Ideally a community self-survey would elicit genuine and signifi-
cant participation on the part of citizens in this matter. Self re-
education is the goal, so that citizens are prepared, after a period of
discovery and training, to play a more constructive role in rooting
out discriminatory practices in their communities. What was
wanted, Lewin stated to the C. C.I. staff, was a method that would:
1. Uncover the facts.
2. Show areas of greatest discrimination where countermeasures
could be most effectively applied.
3. Provide an accurate measure of discrimination so that future
surveys could indicate what progress had been made.
4· Cost little.
5. Get the kind of information that would enable discussion of
what to do and how to do it.
6. Get community involvement so that action would follow .
fact finding. Residents would take seriously the facts that they
themselves uncovered. Their findings should lead them to press
for action because of their own energetic involvement.
To achieve these results, C.C.I. devised an Index of Discrimina-
tion. The Index could be translated as readily as a barometer read-
ing. It established a procedure which carried research over into ac-
215
THE AMERICAN YEARS
Handling Bigots
217
THE AMERICAN YEARS
The sequence of the versions was varied so that the order did not
affect the choice.
Altogether, 199 experimental bystanders were tested in the pilot
study. Of these, 65 per cent preferred the calm answer; 15 per cent,
the excited, harsh answer; and 20 per cent, "no answer." This .find-
ing was completely confirmed by later experiments. Most signifi-
cant, however, was the evidence that four out of five bystanders did
not want to see the bigot go unchallenged. This meant that the
individual who spoke up in public against stereotyped slurs on mi-
norities could be assured that a typical group of bystanders would
be on his side. A dignified manner of answering was preferred, but
some kind of answer was definitely wanted by the group that over-
heard the remark.
This portion of the pilot study made it clear that "you don't
remain silent." The problem then became: What kind of answer?
To discover this, audience reactions were studied by a number of
methods. There were 51 3 persons in this part of the investigation. A
preference was expressed for using "American tradition" as against
"individual differences." However, So per cent strongly preferred
any answer at all to silence, and 68 per cent of the subjects preferred
the calm, quiet manner. On the basis of these findings the investiga-
tors recommended that public slurs against minorities be answered
by appeals based on either democracy or individual differences, and
answered quietly.
218
CHAPTER
22
UNIFYING THEMES
AND THE
LAST DAYS
219
THE AMERICAN YEARS
ing their jobs, as well as the ideas of biased white people about what
is "proper" or "not proper" for Negroes. Opposed to these social
forces were those resisting increased discriminatory practices, either
out of fear of a black revolt or as a moral recognition that the
existing practices were unfair. "It, therefore, becomes a matter of
major importance," said Lewin, "for understanding and planning
changes, to analyze carefully the opposing forces. Levels of conduct
can be changed either by adding forces in the desired direction or
by diminishing opposing forces." But Lewin cautioned, the effects
can be very different between situations where the new level is
brought about by increasing the forces which demand equality for
the Negro and situations where the forces which oppose it are di-
minished. For, in the first situation, the new level would be accom-
panied by a state of relatively high tension and in the second by low
tension. Since increase of tension above a certain degree goes paral-
lel with greater fatigue, higher aggressiveness, higher emotionality,
and lower constructiveness, it is clear that the second method is
preferable to the high-pressure method.
Lewin considered the change process as having three steps: un-
freezing, moving to the new level, and freezing at the new level.
These could be achieved with existing techniques, but Lewin recog-
nized that the problems of inducing change would require consider-
ably more research than had yet been carried out. He expressed his
optimism about the possibility of developing promising techniques
for producing social changes that would be superior to the conven-
tional methods and showed, by citing a number of action-research
experiments, how this could be achieved.
Trist deeply laments that Lewin never spent the academic year
1947-1948 at Tavistock. But Lewin's influence on Tavistock has
continued through the years. His field theory was used to shape the
research design of the "Glacier Project," a pioneering study of
group relations in a giant industrial organization-in this case, the
newly nationalized British coal industry. Among the younger
generation of British behavorial scientists, Trist believes, Lewin has
been particularly important. "In the analysis of the environment
and its causal texture; in research design and in following the course
223
THE AMERICAN YEARS
For Lewin, ever stnvmg beyond his strength, the pace and
demands of his activities began to take their toll. In the summer of
1946, when the Lewins spent a week at Martha's Vineyard with
their friends Fritz and Grace Heider, the effect on him was evident.
Both could see the building tension-and the onset of exhaustion.
Brief as was the time they were together that summer, Grace
Heider speaks of it as "frustration." The last years got "more and
more frantic," she recalled. "More and more he was doing ten
things at once."
Fritz urged his friend to slow down, and Lewin agreed, saying
that he longed "to have again the old times." But even during that
week at the Vineyard, the friends could hardly talk together
because Lewin had a number of articles to finish. He was working
on all of them at once-proofreading, writing through all hours of
the night, coming for meals and then rushing away. The pressure
seemed to crush his natural gaiety. Grace Heider recalls: "During
this last period his playfulness was lost-you felt he was no longer
capable of it, because he'd let himself get pulled in so many different
directions that he was never inwardly at peace."
His friends were concerned but of two minds as to what ought to
be done. There were those who wanted him to go on with bigger
and better projects and those who wanted him to drop many of
them and sit down and think more because they felt that he still was
going to explore important new theoretical depths.
The change inLewin impressed another friend from the old Berlin
days. When MacKinnon saw him at the last meeting of the Ameri-
can Psychological Association which Lewin attended, he sensed
that his ex-teacher's "ability to shift his energies and focus wasn't as
clear as it had been before. He seemed to be preoccupied. You'd talk
with him, but something would come to mind and he'd write it
down or talk about something else. He was distracted by all these
224
Unifying Tbemes and tbe Last Days
pressures and demands upon him. Lewin took on much more than
any human being should have taken on; he was too generous of his
time and energy, too busy, too involved with too many projects, too
many people. It is almost surprising that he lived as long as he did."
On Monday, February 10, 1947, Lewin spent a typically busy
day at the Center. After a hurried dinner at home he left for a
meeting at the residence of Dr. Jacob Fine in Boston, where he was
to speak. He told the small group of invited guests his reasons for
supporting the proposal for the establishment of an International
Jewish Research Foundation and the importance which he attached
to a systematic program of social research for the rehabilitation of
European Jewry. The audience responded to the idea with consid-
erable enthusiasm.
Lewin had invited M.I.T. Research Fellow Simon Herman to
accompany him to the meeting. Lewin had already asked Herman
to consider a full-time position with the Foundation, to serve as
liaison officer between interested groups in the United States and
Palestine. Lewin had told Herman that he felt so certain that the
project would materialize that he had personally refused an invita-
tion from the University of California for the 1947 summer session
so that he would be free to visit Israel and work on this new project.
On Tuesday morning, February 1 r-the last day of his life-
Lewin met briefly with Herman again. He expressed considerable
elation at the outcome of the previous night's meeting and asked
Herman to write up the minutes of the proceedings and to join him
for a further talk at five o'clock Herman explained that he had set
up a conference with some students for that hour and promised to
phone Lewin that evening instead.
The rest of Tuesday was especially busy for Lewin. His agenda
was overloaded with items that had to be taken care of before he left
for New York the following day. His visit to New York involved
meetings with important people on a number of pressing issues, and
he hurriedly put together the ideas he planned to present. He also
spent some time talking with Lippitt, who remembers that Lewin
spoke about the mistaken notions of the therapist who perceives the
challenge of creating persons who perceive themselves as ready and
225
THE AMERICAN YEARS
226
EPILOGUE
AN ENDURING
INFLUENCE
227
THE AMERICAN YEARS
193o's, the murder of his mother and other members of his family
by the Nazis. Yet these ordeals never shook his faith in a better
future. He met them as they came with characteristic fortitude,
courage, and inextinguishable hope.
He was as gracious in his sufferings as he was silent about them.
His pursuit of the truth about the hearts and minds of men caused
him to subordinate his own pain to the service of other sufferers.
Indeed, even after his death Lewin continued to inspire and renew
the study of men's psyches. As Robert B. MacLeod states, "It is a
tribute to the fertility of Lewin's ideas and to his genius for attract-
ing colleagues of the highest caliber that after his death the group at
M.I.T. did not dissolve. In accordance with the principles of group
dynamics, the Research Center for Group Dynamics at M.I.T. gen-
erated their own leadership, loaded their covered wagon, and ven-
tured west to the wilds of Michigan. Now, many years later, they
are still young, vigorous, and productive." 1
The first official recognition of his spreading influence was the
setting up of an annual Kurt Lewin Memorial by the Society for
the Psychological Study of Social Issues. The organization also held
a memorial meeting for Lewin during the 1947 convention of the
American Psychological Association at which three of his close
associates-Gordon Allport of Harvard University, Edward C.
Tolman of the University of California, and 1-were invited to speak
of his life and work in psychology.
Tolman, who spoke first, described "Lewin's emphasis on the
ahistorical, contemporaneous, systematic determiners of behavior as
an expression of a new and tremendously fruitful intellectual insight.
. . . This emphasis on the importance of the contemporaneous
signified that in order to mitigate the horrors of our world we can in
large measure do so by inducing the appropriate field forces. We do
not have to wait and start all over again with our infants and our
infants' infants. We can begin here and now with ourselves, how-
228
An Enduring Influence
229
THE AMERICAN YEARS
230
An Enduring Influence
distinguished social scientists who have won it, some are theorists,
others experimenters, and still others pioneers in action research.
Some are psychologists; some are not. But all are involved in the
scientific smdy of social problems, as can be seen from the roster of
the recipients and the work for which they were honored.
2JI
THE AMERICAN YEARS
more responsible than anyone else, more than everybody else, for
bringing the social and emotional behavior of children into the field
of science." Margaret Mead adds that "Lewin and his group repre-
sented something wholly alive and significant for the whole country,
for the whole of social science." Murphy writes, "Lewin had every-
thing that went into the making of a great psychologist."
Lewin's influence continues to be felt in the generation of psy-
chologists that followed and who did not know him during his life-
time. One of this group, typical of others, is Chris Argyris, who has
written: "Lewin's work inspired me because it suggested a model
that combined theory, empirical research, and relevance to reality. I
vowed to work toward that goal. Today's students and younger
faculty are striving to make their disciplines more relevant to critical
life issues. All have much to learn from Lewin. For Lewin had
the skill to integrate scientific rigor with reality and for this reason
became the first major model of social scientist-activist of the highest
quality. If more Lewins existed, we would not have to wonder if
psychology had forgotten the humanness of human beings. I do not
know of a better model for us to emulate. I am always bolstered, and
my motivation is rekindled, by reading Lewin, the theoretician, re-
searcher, and activist par excellence."
Another member of the group in the generation that followed is
Warren G. Bennis. He writes: "I was never a student of Lewin's. I
had known only colleagues and students of Lewin as my teachers
and senior colleagues. I was always surprised when I actually read
his work. Always a significant question, innocently explored with
diagrams out of St. Exupery, and restlessly leading to such subjects
as friendship, cultural differences in child rearing, leadership and its
consequences, social change, and the origins of the philosophy of
science. I thought that, like most charismatic men, his spirit would ·
predominate rather than his mind. Only recently have I changed my
mind about that. In putting together the revision of a book of mine,
I rediscovered the extent to which I internalized his ideas and some
of his methods. Several of the sections dealt with change and resist-
ance to change: their intellectual forefather was Lewin. Several other
233
THE AMERICAN YEARS
2 34
An Enduring Influence
2 35
THE AMERICAN YEARS
suggested to Adams that Lewin's real business in life was the com-
parative science of sciences.
But psychologists concerned with social practice and social theory
in organizational life find paramount the seminal work of Lewin
in laying the foundation for much of their conceptual framework.
Likert, Maier, and McGregor have emphasized the enormous in-
fluence of Lewin on their studies in industry. Clearly, Lewin's
influence on the formation of theory was parallel. Heider's theory
of interpersonal relations, Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance,
Cartwright and Harary's work on graph theory, all were in some
degree shaped by their authors' association with Lewin. Tolman,
himself a noted theoretician, expressed his debt by acknowledging
that he "borrowed time and again from Lewin and absorbed his
ideas into my very blood."
There are, of course, various alternatives to Lewin's concepts and
methods. As Murphy observed, "One of the most common objec-
tions to Lewin's work was that he was concerned with present cross-
sections of behavior, not with the history of how they came into
being. The other main objections were that he had not really shown
the non-utility of the reduction of wholes into definable units, that
he had neglected individual differences, and that he had not shown
that the topological (or any kind of graphic) portrayal of functions
was more serviceable than the current verbal and conventional
mathematical methods."
Murphy believes that Lewin could certainly have replied to all
this: "Look at the new experiments and results which in point of
fact did come from the new approach. And to this the observer can
only add, not the new method alone, and not the specific individual
alone, but the field relation of these two-and indeed their relations
to the twentieth-century world and to the psychology prevalent in
the world-is what gave field theory the vitality and the productive-
ness it achieved."
Heider, reviewing Lewin's contributions, remarks, "I get an im-
pression whenever I try to understand Lewin's basic notions that
they are, so to speak, visions not at all completely formulated and
explicated, that they have a wealth of implicit meaning which has
236
An Enduring Influence
not yet been exhausted and that they are therefore still full of prom-
ise of further development."
Perhaps this is why Tolman wrote that in the future history of
our psychological era Freud will be revered for his first unraveling
of the complexities of the individual·history and Lewin for his envi-
sioning of the dynamic laws according to which individuals behave
as they do.
2J7
APPENDIX
A
A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE
WORKS OF KURT LEWIN
2 39
APPENDIX A
2 43
APPENDIX
IB
THE BERLIN EXPERIMENTS
2 44
The Berlin Experiments
taSks; permitted to finish another third; and interrupted and then per-
mitted to complete the final third. The results showed that recall
among the second and third groups-in both of which the subjects
were permitted to finish the tasks-was almost identical, indicating that
the critical factor was not interruption but incompletion. By prevent-
ing completion of the tasks, the experimenter had blocked the subjects'
only natural means of releasing the tension system. Thus, the tensions
not only demanded release by means of completion; they were also
being reproduced in recall. Recall dearly had the role of indicator for
the still-unreleased tension.
Zeigarnik concluded that, by refusing to allow the tasks to be com-
pleted, she had prevented the only natural release of the tension system.
These tensions not only drove in the direction of completion but were
assertive in reproduction, an indicator for the driving tension. The su-
perior memory value of the interrupted tasks was due to the energies
existing at the time of questioning rather than to those at the time of
interruption.
The existence of the quasi-need generated by the intention to per-
form was the first experimental confirmation of Lewin's theory of psy-
chic dynamics. Lewin recognized that the construct of a system in
tension for representing psychological needs presupposed a field theory.
Conceptually, he wrote later, tension referred to the state of one sys-
tem relative to the state of surrounding systems. Zeigarnik's findings
demonstrated a tendency for change in the direction of equalization of
the state of neighboring systems. It was typical of Lewin's approach to
scientific experiment that, rather than seeking more exact quantitative
measurements, he encouraged his students to try new independent vari-
ations from the basic assumptions and test them experimentally with
the purpose of corroborating them.
that could determine the strength of the tension, not by testing recall,
but by measuring the subjects' spontaneous resumption of the tasks.
As in the Zeigarnik experiment, Ovsiankina set her I 2 5 subjects a
number of specific assignments to carry out, thereby creating a group
of tension systems striving for discharge and seeking behavior that
would bring release. Ovsiankina's procedure was similar to Zeigarnik's
except that (a) her interruptions were for the most part "accidental"
(rather than deliberate, as with Zeigarnik), and (b) she introduced a
free period shortly after the interruption, lasting from two to eight
minutes, while she busied herself with other matters. Ovsianldna studied
what happened during this interval.
Of the tasks which the subjects thought were "accidentally" inter-
rupted, 100 per cent were spontaneously resumed. Of clearly "deliber-
ate" interruptions, 82 per cent were resumed. Analysis of the subjects'
actions during the free period showed that the resumptions came in
greatest number when the breaking off took place just before a task's
completion. Also, resumption occurred most readily when the subject
had been working hard at the task, or had a special aptitude for it, or
was highly ambitious.
Commenting on Ovsiankina's findings, Lewin wrote: "The fre-
quency of resumption signifies that, as long as the need is not satisfied, a
force corresponding to the valence of the goal should exist and lead to
an action in the direction of that goal." It is this force which creates the
strong tendency to take up again an interrupted task.
247
APPENDIX B
pended on how strong his need was to occupy himself with the original.
When this need was strong, the substitute was rejected without ex-
ception. The child was apparently firmly tied to the existing situation.
Once the child's original interest had lagged (corresponding to satisfac-
tion of his need), rejection of the substitute occurred less frequently.
The child was freer in his actions and more readily able to make the
transition to a lesser degree of reality.
249
APPENDIX B
tention was rooted in the main task. The more significant a part of the
central need system, the greater the chances of carrying out the inten-
tion. In Birenbaum's experiment, intention was most frequently for-
gotten when it was isolated from the subject's other activities and un-
related to his psychic needs; intention was most frequently carried out
when it figured as part of a larger, more coherent sequence of activities.
usually either one step up or one step down; after an easy success, on
the other hand, the subject might jump several steps upward in select-
ing the next maze to complete. Jucknat found the same pattern in the
failure series, in which the subjects lowered their aspiration level in
proportion to the degree of the failure experience~.
254
The Berlin Experiments
2 55
APPENDIX B
Sara Fajans 10 (with the help of Vera Mahler) carried out a series of
experiments during 1928 and 1929 with some 140 children ranging in
age from six months to six and one half years. They sought to deter-
mine how significant a factor distance was in establishing the strength
of a valence, especially where the psychological distance corresponds
to the physical distance.
The children were offered objects with a positive valence-a choco-
late bar, a ratde, or a doll-at different distances, but always so that
they were unable to reach it. The investigators then observed the kind
of effect (and its duration) that the object had on each child. They
found it easy, even in infants, to recognize the nature of the child's
response-that is, whether the child turned toward or away from the
object, and whether it was active or passive toward it. Marked differ-
ences in the children's behavior were found between the near-experi-
ment and the far-experiment. In the near-experiment, the child contin-
uously exhibited a lively and active turning toward the desired thing;
in the far-experiment, the turning toward was brief and consisted chiefly
of looking at-rather than reaching for-the object.
The same infants turned toward the goal object a total of 96 seconds
in the first near-experiment as compared with 2 6 seconds in the first far-
experiment. Some 53 seconds were spent in the first near-experiment in
direct active turning toward; in the far-experiment, the average of this
type of activity was only 5 seconds. Finally, the experimenters found
that the duration of all periods of turning toward was so much greater
in the first near-experiment than in the far-experiment that it com-
pletely overpowered the effect of the temporal sequence of the first
two experiments. This was true not only on the average but also for
each individual infant in the two groups. In the second experiment as
well, the lesser distance of the goal object greatly enhanced the effect
of the valence.
Commenting on Fajans' study, Lewin noted that one cannot assume
that psychological distance corresponds to physical distance; also that
10 S. Fajans, "Die Bedeutung der Entfernung fiir die Starke eines Aufforderungs-
charal<ters beim Saugling und Kleinldnd, Psycbologiscbe Forscbrmg, 1933, 17, 115-
z67.
2 57
APPENDIX B
subject took his task as his principal goal, reversion to the first habit did
not occur.
259
APPENDIX
c
THE TOPOLOGY GROUP-1935
260
The Topology Group-1935
Edwin Newman (Swarthmore) T. A. Ryan (Cornell)
Dr. Oeser (Scotland) Robert Sears (Yale)
R. M. Ogden (Cornell) Mildred Spicer (Cornell)
M. R. Pekarsky (Northwestern) E. C. Tolman (California)
261
APPENDIX
ID
IOWA STUDIES
262
Iowa Studies
ence of uncompleted work of another person does not lead (or
only rarely leads) to spontaneous completion by children.
A. MARRow, "Goal Tension and Recall" (I938), investigated the effect
of praise and condemnation in a competitive situation on the
Zeigarnik quotient. In both cases, the quotient rises, apparently
indicating that the strength of the force in the direction of spon-
taneous recollection is a function of the intensity of the need.
H. F. WRIGHT, "The Influence of Barriers upon the Strength of Motiva-
tion" (I 93 7), found no increase in speed with decreasing distance
from a goal when the situation involved nursery school children
pulling the goal (a marble) toward themselves. The study also
indicated that a difficulty may increase the need for an object be-
hind a barrier: the child will prefer (everything else being equal) a
toy which is slightly more difficult to reach.
M. E. KEISTER, "The Behavior of Young Children in Failure: An Ex-
perimental Attempt to Discover and to Modify Undesirable Re-
sponses of Preschool Children to Failure" ( 1937), found it is
possible to change the reaction of nursery school children to
failure through proper training. The increase of persistence and
the decrease of rationalization and of emotional and destructive
reactions showed a certain amount of transfer to different areas of
activity.
R. BARKER, T. DEMBO, and K. LEWIN, "Frustration and Regression"
( 1941 ), showed that the constructiveness of play of a five-and-a-
half-year-old child may regress to the level of a three-and-a-half-
year-old as a result of frustration.
R. BARKER, "An Experimental Study of the Resolution of Conflict in
Children" (I 942), studied the way in which children make choices
between more or less agreeable or disagreeable foods and found
that the choice time increases with the intensity of the conflict.
The decision time is longer in choices between two negative than
between two positive valences.
B. A. WRIGHT, "Altruism in Children and the Perceived Conduct of
Others" ( I 942), studied five- and eight-year-old children when
they had a choice of keeping a preferred toy or giving it to some-
one else. The other child (who was not present) was either some-
one unknown or a best friend. The five-year-old children consist-
APPENDIX D
266
APPENDIX
E
C.C.I. PUBLICATIONS
ABOUT C.C.I.
KURT LEWIN, ALFRED J. MARRow, and CHARLES E. HENDRY, Accent on
Action: A New Approach to Minority Group Problems in Amer-
ica. Mimeographed, I945· r4 pp. Presents a point of view on inte-
grating research and community action in the fight against prej-
udice.
HARoLD P. LEvY, Pushing Back the Barriers. Reprint from Better Times,
May w, r 946. 4 pp. Describes some early C.C.I. projects, partic-
ularly the preliminary work on incident control.
TRAcY S. KENDLER, The Research Program of C.C.l. Mimeographed,
May '949· z pp. Describes the problems investigated by C.C.I. and
their relationship to the overall program of the American Jewish
Congress.
WILLIAM ScHwARTZ, Questions and Answers about C.C.l. Mimeo-
graphed, June 1950. 9 pp. A discussion of the work of C.C.I. pre-
sented in question-and-answer form. Each of C.C.I.'s major re-
search projects is described briefly.
GENERAL METHODS OF IMPROVING INTERGROUP RELATIONS
MILTON L. BLuM and CLAIRE SELLTIZ, The Seminar as a Method of In-·
Service Training. Reprint from The Journal of Educational Soci-
ology, 19, No. 7, March 1946. 9 pp. Describes a seminar in which
public school and Hebrew teachers studied the intergroup rela-
tions of their students.
GooDWIN WATsoN, Action for Unity. Pamphlet. Jewish Affairs pam-
phlet series, 1, No. 5, April 1946. :z 3 pp. A summary of the book
Action for Unity. This pamphlet is based on a nation-wide survey
APPENDIX E
z68
C.C.I. Publications
270
C. C. I. Publications
curred when subjects were presented with an anti-Negro incident
and various answers.
joHN HARDING, An Experimental Study of Answers to Anti-Negro
Remarks. Mimeographed. Paper read at the annual meeting of the
American Psychological Association, September I 95 I. 4 pp. Com-
pares experimental results on answers to anti-Negro remarks with
findings on answers to anti-Semitic remarks.
271
APPENDIX E
272
C. C. I. Publications
ter Worker, May 1948. 4 pp. Discusses the problems of Jewish
youth growing out of varying degrees of identification with the
Jewish group. Research possibilities for shedding light on these
problems are briefly noted.
IsmoR CHEIN, TRACYS. K~o:NoLJo:a, and CARoL CoAN, Discussion Guide
on Raising jewish Children. Mimeographed, 1949. 9 pp. Guide for
a discussion course covering such questions as: parental goals for
their children; problems children and parents face; the significance
of parents' attitudes and practices.
IsmoR CHEIN, A Psychologist's Notes on the Impact of Current Trends
on jews. Mimeographed. Paper read at the National Conference
of Jewish Social Welfare, June 1949· 4 pp. Presents psychological
considerations involved in assessing the effect of current trends on
the lives of Jews.
TAMARA DEI\-IBO, The Problem of]ewish Identification. Mimeographed,
April 1951. 4 pp. Discusses Jewish identification as part of the
general problem of multiple group membership.
IsmoR CHEIN, The Faulty Educational Model. Reprint from Congress
Weekly, 18, No. 3, January 15, 1951· 4 pp. Presents a critical re-
view of the basic assumptions of Jewish education as it is now
practiced in America.
lsmoR CHEIN, jewish Education and Personality Growth. Mimeo-
graphed. Paper read at the First National Conference on Jewish
Education, January 1951. 3 pp. Discusses psychological problems
of Jewish education. The relevance of personality growth to
Jewish content is examined in some detail.
IsmoR CHEIN, Education and Knowledge. Mimeografhed, November
1951· 6 pp. Discusses the difference between rea knowledge and
pseudo knowledge and methods by which Jewish education can
promote the former rather than the latter.
IsmoR CHEIN, The Need for jewish Knowledge. Mimeographed, 1951.
4 pp. Argues the existence of a basic need among Jews for Jewish
knowledge and discusses ways in which Jewish education can fos-
ter this need instead of discouraging it.
MINORITY GROUP :MEMBERSHIP: EMPIRICAL STUDIES
jAcoB I. HuRwiTZ, On Being a jew: Perceptions, Attitudes, and Needs
of jewish Children. Mimeographed. This article appeared in The
jewish Center Worker, May 1948. 7 pp. A brief description of a
study of Jewish children. Discusses problems encountered, com-
munication between the subject and the majority group, and val-
ues derived from membership in own group.
ARNOLD M. RosE, The Negro's Morale: Group Identification and
Group Protest. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1949.
273
APPENDIX E
153 pp. This book describes how Negroes feel toward other Ne-
groes and toward themselves. It also discusses the reactions of
Negroes to discrimination and the way in which these reactions
influence Negro-white relations.
lsiDOR CHEIN, WILLIAM ScHWARTZ, ABRAHAM F. CITRON, and MARGOT
HAAs WoRMSER, Description of the Issues in the Experience Survey
of Jewish Educators and Group Workers. Photo-offset, March
1950. 22 pp. Describes the issues raised in the experience survey on
problems in preparing Jewish youth for their dual role of member-
ship in the Jewish and general communities.
lsiDoR CHEIN, WILLIAM ScHWARTZ, ABRAHAM F. CITRoN, and MARGOT
HAAs WoRMSER,./nterview Schedule: Experience Survey of Jewish
Educators and Group Workers. Mimeographed, March 1950. 22
pp. Schedule used by interviewers on problems in preparing Jewish
youth for their dual role of membership in the Jewish and gen-
eral communities.
lsiDoR CHEIN and jAcoB I. HuRwiTz, The Reactions of Jewish Boys to
Various Aspects of Being Jewish. Mimeographed, 1950. 42 pp.
This monograph reports a study of the way Jewish boys feel about
their Jewishness, identification with the Jewish group, relation-
ships with non-Jewish peers, personal and social adjustment, and
receptivity to Jewish cultural programs.
MARION RADICE, The Meaning of Minority Membership to Jewish Col-
lege Students. Mimeographed, 1951. 36 pp. Reports one of a series
of studies which have as their objective the investigation of the
meaning of minority-group membership to the minority-group
member. Factors such as the following are examined: Values mem-
bers attached to membership in the group; their goals with respect
to intergroup relations; the relationship between group member-
ship values and such factors as personal adjustment, socio-economic
level, etc.
MARION RADKE, Group Belonging of Jewish Children in Relation to
Their Age. Mimeographed, 195r. ZI pp. This study deals with
boys and girls between the ages of seven and seventeen who were
members of two Jewish Community Centers. The report examines
changes with age in the acceptance and rejection of things Jewish.
MARION RADKE, HADASSAH DAvis, jACOB I. HuRWITZ, and PEARL PoL-
LAcK, Group Belonging among Various Subgroups of I ewish Chil-
dren. Mimeographed, 1951. 35 pp. Examines the effect of diverse
subcultures within the Jewish group on Jewish children's percep-
tions of themselves as Jews, the problems they confront, and the
values they derive from their Jewish group membership.
2 74
C. C. I. Publications
RESEARCH ~IETHODOLOGY
IF
RESEARCH CENTER
FOR GROUP DYNAMICS
PUBLICATIONS-1945-1950
279
APPENDIX F
z8o
Research Center for Group Dynamics Publications-Lg4)-Ig)o
286
Index
group loyalty, 207-108 Kallen, Horace, 17,82, 106,159
group psychotherapy, 167 Kansas, University of, 131
Gundlach, Ralph, 188 Karsten, Anitra, 46
Katz, Daniel, z31
Hahn, Maxwell, 16o-I6I Kay, Lillian W., '9'• 194
Haire, Mason, 137, 131 Keister, JVIary Elizabeth, 156
Harding,John,I37o 194,197,217 Kelley, Harold H., 184, 186, 188
Harvard University, 136-137 King, Martin Luther, zoo
Hanvood Manufacturing Company, Klineberg, Otto, z 31
141-15', '55· 169, 185 Koffka,Kurt,8, '7•2o,s6,s7,69,11z
Hearn, Gordon, 184, I86-187,126 Kohler, Karen, 75
Hebrew University (Jerusalem), 75, 76, Kohler, vVolfgang, 8, 12, '7• 2o, 21, 13,
8o,84, 186 24, 25, 38, 56, 68---() 9, 75-76, 77. 102, uz,
Heider, Fritz, I'· '7· zo, 37· 67, 68, 75· 77· 11 9· 159
79· 86, 112, 114, 224· 231,136-237 Kohler, Mrs. Wolfgang, 75
Heider, Grace, 67, 75, 76, 77, 79, 86, 112, Korsch, Hedda, 6, 8, 12
I 14, 224 Korsch, Karl, 12, 117
Hendry, Charles, 173-176, 178, 18o, 194, Kounin, Jacob, 117, 157
202 Krech, David, 112, "3
Henle,h1ary, '57
Herman, Simon, 186,215 laboratory research, 194
Hertzman, Max, 92 Lacey, John, 188
Hicks, AI, 91 Landsberg, Maria, see Lewin, Maria
Hillel, quoted, '93 Lashley, Karl, 136
Hitler, Adolf, 64, 67, 74• 75, 85, 139, 16z Lasswell, Harold, 113
Hogrefe, Russell, 204 law, social change and, 205-206
Hoover, Herbert, 99 Lazarsfeld, Paul F., 154
Hoppe, Ferdinand, 44-45, 119 leadership training, 146, 192,210-114
Horace Mann School (New York City), Leeper, Robert, 89, 104, 117, 139
201 Lewin, Agnes (daughter), 11, 55
Horowitz, Murray, z 1z Lewin, Daniel (son), 68
housing, integrated, zoB-210 Lewin, Egon (brother), 4
Hull, Clark, 102, 104, 222 Lewin, Fritz (brother), 4, 10
Hullian theory, 37 Lewin, Fritz (son), 12,55
Human Relations, 189, z 21 Lewin, Gertrud (second wife), 4• '7• 55,
65,66,67,68, 75, 93, uz, 139, 18o, zz6
Immigration Act, 101 Lewin, Hertha (sister), 4• 12
Index of Discrimination, 115,216 Lewin, Kurt: applied psychology and,
industry, action research in, 141-ISZ 14-17; army life, 10, 85; associate pro-
integration, 195-zoo fessor, 54; Award, 230; birth, 3; Cali-
International Jewish Research Founda- fornia University and, 138; childhood,
tion on Human Relations, zzz, 225 4; Commission on Community In-
Iowa, University of, 84, 86-95, 96, 101, terrelations and, 191-218, 219; Cornell
165 University and, 68, 73-75, 8z, 84; death
isolationism, Midwestern, 97 of, 226; divorce, 55; education, 4--9;
Israel, 103, 215 enduring influence of, 127-236; ex-·
periments, 40-47; Gestaltism and, 13-
Jacques, Eliot, 137 '4• 25, 34· 76, n; growth of reputa-
Jahoda, Marie, 194 tion, 48---()3, 1p; Harvard University
James, William, 7 and, 136; Harwood Manufacturing
Jenkins, David, 184 Company and, 141-151, 169; influence
job satisfaction, function of, 16 on Japanese psychology, 67; Iowa
Johnson, Charles, '95· 219 University and, 84, 86-95, 96, 101, 165;
Jordan curve, 38-39, 4'• 78-79, 136 Jewish Research Foundation on Hu-
Juclmat, Sara, 44-45 man Relations and, 112, 125; last days
Jung, Carl, 52 at the Psychological Institute, 64, 68;
Index
Lewin, Kurt ( cont'd) Michigan, University of, 1o6, 190
Memorial, 118; Office of Naval Re- Mill, john Stuart, 134
search and, 154-155; personality, 6, Miller, Irving, 161-163
66; philosophy and, 17; physical de- Miller, Neil, 66
scription of, 65; Research Center for minority groups, ·loi, Io8-110, 191-1oo,
Group Dynamics and, 165, 166, •1•- 110
171, 173; shortcomings of, 93-94; so- Morse, Arthur D., 139
cial psychological problems and, 96- motives, association and, 11
110; Stanford University and, 65-66, Miiller, G., 8
73; teacher, 17, 11r-18, 86--95, 103-105, Murchison, Carl, 56, 59
I86-187; temperament, 4; World War Murphy, Gardner, 65, 113, "9• 137-138,
II and, 153-156 159,131, 13J, 136
Lewin, Leopold (father), 3,4 Murphy, Lois B., 195
Lewin, Maria (first wife), 11, ss Murray,Harry,5z
Lewin, Miriam (daughter), 65, 66, 67,68 Murray, Henry A., uz, 136, 137, 154,
Lewin, Recha (mother), 4• 139, 140, 118 181
libido, 135 Myers, Charles, 181
"life space," concept of, II, 11, 11, 18, Myrdal, Gunnar, 131
34-36, 38-39• 4'• 6o, 77• So, 98, 108-109,
133 National Institute of Mental Health, 183
Likert, Rensis, 73, 154, 164, 173, 195, 135 National Training Laboratories, 146, :no,
Lippitt, Ronald, 88, 91, 105, 107, 119, 113-114
113-117, 143, 146, 156, 157, 173-174• Naval Research, Office of, '54• 113
181 1 181, 184, 185, 186, 191 1 194, 1II, Negroes, 195, •¢, 199, zoo, zo1, 103, 104,
111,115 106-107, 108-:uo, zn, :u6, ZI9-ZZO,
Lowell, Abbott Lawrence, 101 113
loyalty, group, 107-108 neo-positivism, 37
Luria, A. R., 67 Newcomb, Theodore M., 131
288
Index
imental, S, 9• 29, sz, 53, 232; general Spence, Kenneth, S4, 104
theoretical, 21; industrial, 21; physi- Sproul, Edward, 164, •6s
ological, 19; scientific, 15; social, 232; Stanford University, 65--66, 73
see also topology stereotype, changing a, 146-149
"Psycho-Sociological Problems of a Mi- Stern, William, 112, 13S
nority Group" {Lewin}, 10S-1Io Stevens, S. Smith, 136, 137
Stoddard, George, S4, 107
Quasselstrippe, 26, SS, 103, '''• 127, 1S1 Stouffer, Samuel, '54
Strategic Services, Office of, 154, '55•
Radke, Marian, 1So, 1Ss, 1S6, 1SS, 194 •56, •6•, •1 4•• so
recall of uncompleted taslcs, 4'• 42,43 Stumpf, Carl, 6, 7, S, 21
Red!, Fritz, 195, 196 substitution, 43
"Regression, Retrogression, and Devel- Supreme Court, U.S., 196
opment" {Lewin), 123
research: community, 194; laboratory, Tavistock Institute {London}, 69, 222-
194; and theory, 129; see also action 223
research Taylor, Frederick Winslow, •s, 21, 141
Research Center for Group Dynamics, tension systems, 27-39,42-47,49, So
165, 166, , 7 ,-1 72, •73 , •?S-• 90, 22S Terman, Lewis M., 65, 66, S7
riots, race, 19S Terminiello, Arthur, 202
Roclcefeller Foundation, 1S3, 222 theory: Lewin on, 30, 94--«JS, 129; test-
Rogers, Carl, 1S7, 213-214 ing, in action, •n-•59
Roosevelt, Franklin D., 99 Thibaut, John, 1S9
Rosahn, Otto, 217 Tolman, Edward, 56, 57· 11·2, II], 164,
Rosenberg, Pearl, 1S6 165, 195, 22S, 231,237
Russell, Bertrand, 137 topology, 36-3S, 40, 4'• 66, 67, 69, 7S, 79,
So,S9, 102,106, •••-••s, 132-136
Salmma, Kanae, 24-25,67 Topology Group, 111-115
sales personnel, integration of, 206-207 training: leadership, 146, 192, 21o-214;
Sanger, Gerhart, 194,206 sensitivity, 21o-214
satiation, 46, 91, 117 Trist, Eric, 69, 222, 223
Schachter, Stanley, 1S4 Twitchell, Doris, see Allen, Doris
Sears, Pauline, 66, 13S
Sears, Robert, 66, nS, '3'• 13S, 157, 195,
232 valence, 3'• 57, 61, So, ••s
Seashore, Carl, S4 vandalism, 19S, 201
Seashore,llarold,9•,•o7
Seeman, Melvin, 2 12 "War Landscape, The" {Lewin}, 11
segregation, •¢ Waring, Ethel, 74
self-management, '45 Warner, W. Lloyd, 195
Selltiz, Claire, 217 Watson, Goodwin, '94
sensitivity training, 21o-214 Watson, John, 119
sequence, concept of, sS Weiss, Gertrud, see Lewin, Gertrud
Shalcow, David, 113 Wellman, Beth, S4, 107
Sheels, llarold, SS Wertheimer, Max, S, 13, 17, 23, 24, 3S, 69,
Sherif, Muzafer, 232 76, 106, •59
Simpson, Frank, 210 Wheeler, Dr., SS
Sliosberg, Sarah, 43 While Six Million Died {Morse}, 139
Smertenlco, John J., 97 White, Ralph, 119, 123-127, 143, 146, 157,
Smith, Gerald L. K., 202 173· 232
social psychological problems, ~110 \.Yilhelm II, Kaiser, 4• 13
Society for the Psychological Study of Wilson, A. T. M., 222,231
Social Issues, 227, 22S, 230 Wilson,M.L., 129
"Some Social Psychological Differences Wise, StephenS., 161, 162, •75
between the United States and Ger- work: inner value of, 17; "life value" of,
many" {Lewin}, 9S-10o •s-•6
Index
World War II, IS3-IS6 Zander, Alvin, 88, 92, 93, 186
Wormser, M.H., 1I7 Zeigarnik, Bluma, 20, 21, 28, 41, 42,67
vVright, Beatrice, 9I' I 19, I 57 "Zeigarnik effect," 41, 92, 1I9
Wright, E., 88, 92, Io3, 105, rzo, I22, 157 Zener, Karl, 53, $6, 75, I rz
Wright, Herbert, 84, 101, 105, 156 Zionism, 103
Wundt, William, 7 "zone," concept of, I 1