Social Psychology Kurt Lewin

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Social PsychologyKurt Lewin

• Paul Duckett
• E48 Elizabeth Gaskell Building
• 0161 247 2552
• p.duckett_at_mmu.ac.uk

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History of Western Social Psychology

• If I were required to name the one person who had
  the greatest impact on the field American Social
  Psychology, it would have to be Adolf Hitler
• (Cartwright, 197984)

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Gestalt Psychology
A school of psychology stressing the importance
of studying the subjective way in which an object
appears in peoples minds, rather than the
objective, physical attributes of the object.
Kurt Koftka Wolfgang Kohler Max Wertheimer Kurt
Lewin
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Asking a simple question?How are you doing?

• Interpretation
• Interest
• Politeness
• Ingratiation
• Assessment

• Context
• Close friend
• Casual acquaintance
• Salesperson
• Tutor

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Psychological Imperative

• If an individual sits in a room trusting that
  the ceiling will not come down, should only his
  subjective probability be taken into account
  for predicting behaviour or should we also
  consider the objective probability of the
  ceilings coming down as determined by engineers?
  To my mind, only the first has to be taken into
  account.
• (Lewin, cited in Aronson et al. 2002)

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Kurt Lewin

• Born 9th Sept 1890
• Died 12th Feb 1947
• Emigrated to US in 1933
• Founded the Research Centre for Group Dynamics,
  MIT (now at Michigan Uni)

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Kurt Lewins interests

• Areas of Influence
• Philosophy of science psychology (social,
  developmental, personality, motivational,
  cognitive, clinical) Social organisations
  Social problems Scientific methodology

Areas of Influence Psychology, sociology,
political science, cultural anthropology,
communication studies, law, medicine, education,
business administration, computer programming,
sports, nursing, environmental studies, farm
management, death and dying, tourism
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Life Space

• B f (P, E)
• (Lewin, 1951)
• Behaviour is a function of the person, the
  environment and the interaction between the two
• Environment physical and psychological
• objective subjective

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Life Space Field Theory

• Psychological events (changes in the life space)
  must be explained in terms of the properties of
  the field which exists at the time when the
  events occur.
• Past events can only have a position in the
  historical causal chains whose interweaving
  creates the present situation they cannot
  directly influence present events.
• (Deutsch, 1986121)

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Field Theory

• Field theory teaches us that the immediate
  situation must always be viewed with reference to
  its larger background, and that even a slight
  change in the degree of security or in the rate
  of progress toward the goal may deeply affect the
  behaviour of the individual.
• (Lewin, 1941 In Gold, 1999328)

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Field Theory

• It is an obvious fact that the expectation of the
  individual for his sic future life, his
  estimate of the possibility of success, the
  degree and type of possible danger he sees ahead
  are greatly influenced by his Jewishness.
• (Lewin, 1941 In Gold, 1986329)

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Legacy of Field Theory in Social Psychology

• A belief that psychological events must be
  explained in psychological rather than
  physiological terms
• Psychological events must be studies in their
  interrelations with one another
• The individual must be studied in her
  interrelations with the group to which she
  belongs
• Social-psychological phenomena can be studied
  experimentally
• (Deutsch, 1986)

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Action Research

• There is nothing as practical as good theory
  (Lewin quoted by de Board, 1978)
• Action research
• Action research sets out both to make scientific
  discoveries and to solve practical problems
  (Clark, 1976)

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The Action Research Cycle
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Reciprocity
Main(male)stream research
Person-centred research
Feminist methods Critical Psychology Community
Psychology Action Research Participatory Action
Research