Kurt Lewin

biography

childhood an youth ages

Kurt Lewin (complete name: Kurt Tsadek Lewin) was born at 09. september in the year 1890 in
Mogilno/Poland. He was a child of jewish parents. His father was called Leopold Lewin, and he
was a trader. The mother of Kurt Lewin was Recha Engel. The family had overall six children. He
had two sisters, called Hertha and Susanne and three brothers, called Franz, Egon and Fritz.

In his first basic school years, he visited a school with education in jewish religion. In the yoar
1905 the family Lewin emigrated to Germany. In the city of Berlin Kurt Lewin visited an academic
high school, called Kaiserin-Augusta-Gymnasium. His jewish family did not really practice their
religion. This was not a very important part of his parents' education. In his school time his main
interests were classic languages an philosophy. At the beginning of the new century he left the
academic high school with general qualification for university entrance.

Kurt Lewin

biography

study

In 1909 he began a studium of medicine at the university of Freiburg, later times in Munich and
Berlin. There he also studies biology, , psychologie an philosophy. At the bgeinning he planned to
work later as a doctor, but then he planned to become a scientist.

Because of the beginning of the First World War he did not have the possibility to do his doctorate.
He ended his study with sucess in 1916. In the meantime he served freely in the army.

In the First World War he was wounded in the year 1918. Because of this he was honoured by the
army with the Iron Cross.
 Kurt Lewin
Lewin's field theory

definition and description / examples

Kurt Lewins field theory was one of his most important results in his psychologigal works. In this
theory he speaks about the power of vectors, that have a strong psychological relevance on the
behaviour in concrete situations. The need/ the desire causes energy, gives valence and sets the
behaviour of an individuum in a direction. Therfore he was the first psychologist, who included
the complete social environment in his theory by using a mathematic formula. In his fiel theory
there were three variables: the behaviour=b, the person=p and the environment=e. They all depend
on each other. The social environment was for him the topological area in his mathematic
construct.

The behaviour of an individuum was in his theory all times a fiel behaviour. The actual situation
is allways in the subjective way of seeing. The concrete behaviour (he called it in his field theory
the locomotions) is a result of the approaching and rejecting field powers

We want to explain it with an easy example:

A human being can be hungy or not. That depends on the time of the day. Early in the morning he
would be hungry. In that case he has the desire, to eat something. The result is, that he produces
energy und gives a valence to his desire. This causes perhaps stomach growling or he must think
about eating. In this concrete situation of hunger he gives a positive valence to eating something.
The bigger the hunger, the more positive this valence. The power of the vectors begin to increase.
His cognition will notice everything in his area, that has a relevance to food.

He will try to supply his want to eat something. All his powers work now in the direction to get
food. When he is sated, everything to eat becomes unimportant. The valence wil become negative.
In this case he will not notice a concrete tv-sport for food.

With his field theory Kurt Lewin also spoke first time about group dynamics. In a group of persons
the interactions cause a power field. The behaviour of the different persons in this group is
influenced be this existing power field. Therfore the field theory has also relevance in groups, the
same mathematic rules exist, that we noticed in the beginning.

People in groups wil valuate each other very fast. The will decide, if someone is sympathic or
antipathic. The persons, who have the same interests seem to be more symphatic than for example
opponents. We see, that there are a lot of facts, that can influence the vectors, ther power and there
direction. In group dynamics everythings depends on everything.
 Kurt Lewin
3-phases change management model

Definition an description

The 3-phases change management model, that Kurt Lewin created, is a siple model of social
changes in society. The reason, why he created the the 3-phases change management model, was
foundet in his emigration in the time of the Second World War. He wanted to find out, how it
would be possible to solve the social conflicts in Germany after the war and how it would be
possible to make Germany to a democratic state.

At the end he came to the opinion, that this step only can be reached by reeducation. The germans
had to be forced to their luck, that was his plan.Their negative behaviour to the new political order
had to be changed to a positive behaviour in group dynamics processes. They had to learn to accept
the new system.

In his 3-phases change management model there were allway three different phases in social
groups, that he called "to freeze", "to move" and "to defreeze" (see our model at starting site). In
the phase "to defreeze" there is the preparation for changes in society. Information, and discussion
is very important in that phase. After that the pase "to move" begins. There the changes are
realized. The responsibility is given to the persons. In this process everything must be trained und
supervised. In the third phase (to freeze) the re-education must be fixed and stabilized. It is
important to aviod to go back to old structures.

Today Lewins 3-phases change management model has also a big influency in economy science.
One factor for success of a company depends on the possibility, that the ability of changes is in
the structure of this company. The working peaple of a comany are very often very sceptic when
innovations are planned. Therefore the leading persons have to take away their scepticism. Their
resistance, active or passive, is the greatest problem to solve. All fears must be taken away. All
must learn to accept the new situation, not only for a moment, but for all time (to freeze).
 Kurt Lewin
group dynamics

definition and description

Kurt Lewin was the first one, who spoke in his theories about group dynamics. He mentioned this
expression in the year of 1939 in different psychological articles. In later years other psychologists
like Raoul Schindler and Jacob Moreno also used this expression in their psychological researches.
But what do we understand under the expression "group dynamics"

Definition group dynamics:

Under the term "group dynamics" we understand a model, where we can find different processes
in a group of persons. It is also a method to explore peoples behaviour in a group to understand
the reasons for their behaviour.

In group dynamics there a on the one site the abilities of the group and on the other site the abilities
of the individual person. But this does not mean, that we can add the personal abilities and will
have the complete group abilities as a result.

The reason is, that there are different processes in groups. There are different phases in the dynamic
process. The group makes rules and orders, gives authorisations to some leaders etc. So it can
happen, that some persons with normally weaker personal abilities get more power than the
persons with stronger abilities.