Figure 2.1
Crosby, 2019

Early in life (perhaps not as early as in the drawing, above) Lewin was already thinking about what he called the individual’s “life space,” and how it was influenced by the groupings (such as family and ethnicity), and the culture one was born into. Lewin was born in Mogilno, in the Prussian province of Posen, (now part of Poland, then part of pre-WWI Germany). As a young Jewish male he quickly learned what social and physical “locomotion” was allowed, and what was verboten—such as becoming a tenured professor at the University of Berlin (verboten!).

By the time he marched off to serve in the Kaiser’s army during WWI, Lewin was already theorizing about the nature of being human. He lived his credo that, “There is nothing so practical as a good theory (my bolding) (Lewin, 1943, 1999, p336).” He had earned his doctorate in psychology and was already a pioneer in applying scientific research methods to understanding social phenomena. He was convinced that the explanations of human behavior at the time were inadequate, and that only by combining disciplines such as anthropology, psychology, sociology and in a typically Lewinian creative gesture, topography (the science of map making), could we arrive at a more accurate understanding of ourselves. As Lewin put it, “I am persuaded that scientific sociology and social psychology based on an intimate combination of experiments and empirical theory can do as much, or more, for human betterment as the natural sciences have done (my bolding) (Lewin, 1939, 1997, p67).”

Lewin carried this concoction of ideas to the front, where he noted that the way a soldier perceives the environment they are in is a radical departure from how they would perceive the same landscape during peacetime (see Figure 2.2, below). In other words, how we think is influenced by our life circumstances, dramatically so during war, but still true during more “normal” circumstances.

Figure 2.2
Crosby 2020

Lewin rose to the rank of lieutenant. Because he was Jewish, he could rise no higher in the Kaiser’s army. In wartime as in peacetime his prospects were limited by prejudice operationalized into law, i.e., institutional racism. Lewin was acutely aware of the experience of being a minority with restrictions, as he put it, on “the space of free movement” or “locomotion” not only physical but “social and mental.” He began to understand such restrictions in terms of the psychology of motivation combined with the visual tool of topography and the physics concept of counter forces (both driving and restraining) creating a homeostatic field. The following figure (2.3) is an example of Lewin’s use of topography to create a visual of “life space.” It is a representation of the “space of free movement” of a Jewish male in post WWI Germany, where prejudice was literally legalized.

Figure 2.3
Lewin, 1935, 1997, p110

The following diagram (Figure 2.4) adds force field vectors and Lewin’s explanation is full of mathematical representations. Fortunately, as my own career and the career of my father attests, one need not fully understand Lewin’s application of physics to social science in order to effectively use his methods. Lewin himself when training people to solve social and organizational problems did not attempt to train them in the math of his topographical psychology. My father took Lewin’s force field analysis and came up with his own absolutely non-mathematical visual which you will see in Chapter 13.

Figure 2.4
Boundary forces and resultant boundary forces (Lewin, 1997, p397)

Meanwhile, as you surely know (amazingly, partially because of the on-going authoritarian battle against reason which Lewin warns us about in Chapter 6, far too many people don’t), social conditions for the Jewish minority in Germany would only get worse. Hider, an elected official, would become an authoritarian dictator.

No wonder, as psychologist Gordon Allport once wrote about Lewin and his contemporary peer, American educator John Dewey, “both recognized that each generation must learn democracy anew (Marrow, 1969, p234).” Democracy requires both skilled leadership and “voluntary and responsible participation,” as Lewin’s own research will reveal later in this text.

Following the war Lewin returned to his teaching position at the world-renowned Psychological Institute at the University of Berlin, where he broke down boundaries between disciplines, and between students and faculty. His unorthodox approach to teaching included long discussions in coffee shops with his students, in which he demonstrated equal regard for their opinions regardless of ethnicity or gender. In a tribute written soon after Lewin’s death (he died in 1947 at the young age of 56), friend and colleague Rensis Likert summed up Lewin this way, “No statement about Lewin and his work would be adequate which failed to mention his qualities as a person. There have been few teachers who have been as devoted and loyal to their students. There are few men who are as sincere and generous in their dealings with their fellow men. There are so few genuinely kind persons that it is a real loss to all of us not to have Lewin among us (Likert, 1947, p3).”

His was a radical approach at the time, especially at the stodgy University of Berlin, where most professors would not allow any discourse between students and faculty. At a time when teaching was authoritarian and questions were verboten, in Lewin’s classroom questions and dialogue were encouraged. Another colleague, Ken Benne, describes Lewin’s passion for dialog this way, “He was prepared to learn along with anyone —he seemed to be unusually free of status consciousness. He listened and questioned avidly. From time to time he would raise a finger of his right hand and say, ‘Aha! Could it be this way?’ And he would then propose a new conceptualization of the problem that more often than not opened up a new way of seeing it and new avenues toward a solution (Benne, 1976, p28).”

A great source on Lewin is Alfred Marrow’s The Practical Theorist (pictured at the beginning of section one). Here is some choice material from Marrow to give you a better feel for Lewin and for that period in his life:

One student, Maria Ovsiankina, reflected on her first class with Lewin, in 1924. “He was discussing some research on memory… It was a seminar and there were only about fifteen of us in the room. What impressed me most was that Lewin was concerned not just with concepts but with behavior. He was young and tried to encourage classroom participation… (Marrow, 1969, p21).” Another student, Tamara Dembo adds, “He was already talking in terms of forces, goal-directed behavior, and the life situation, which later became the life space. For Lewin, Psychology was his whole life. We also thought about it all the time, not as a profession but as our whole way of life too—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.” (Marrow, 1969, p21)

The dialogue during class and after was electrifying. As student Norman Maier put it, “The interaction between Lewin and this group of students was so free, and the disagreement so intense, that I remember them as the most stimulating experiences I have ever had. Historical approaches to psychological problems were swept aside. It seemed as if all questions were being attacked from scratch…These were creative discussions during which ideas and theories were generated, explored, and controverted. I’m sure that Lewin owes much to his students in working through the theories that he himself finally reached (Marrow, 1969, p24).”

The teaching style was as spontaneous as the coffee house discussions. Lewin drew formulas and graphics on his blackboard, and invented as he taught. As student Vera Mahler put it, “Time after time 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 psychological 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 indicate 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 blackboard (Marrow, 1969, p22).” The following such graphic (Figure 2.5) is from Lewin, 1946, 1997, p359:

Figure 2.5
State of indecision

Mahler continues, “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 (Marrow, 1969, p23).”

At times, reports Mahler, this made it difficult for his students. She says she once complained to him, “How can we find our way when you keep coming up with new ideas that sometimes contradict the old ones we haven’t yet thoroughly understood?” According to Mahler, 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 (my bolding) (Marrow, 1969, p23).”

Figure 2.6
Space of free movement (Lewin, 1936, p75)

Figure 2.6 (above) is another example of Lewin’s application of topology to social sience. Lewin kept that experimental spirit throughout his life, with some of his most creative breakthroughs coming in his final days. In that spirit of experiment, Lewin shattered boundaries between disciplines. He was a pioneer in asserting that the research methods used by the physical sciences, including math formulas, could also be applied to understanding social and psychological phenomena. “I am persuaded that it is possible to undertake experiments in sociology which have as much right to be called scientific experiments as those in physics and chemistry (Lewin, 1939, 1997, p59).” Throughout the 1920s Lewin and his students proved his hypothesis by conducting ground-breaking study after study: of emotion, of “levels of aspiration” (the degree of difficulty of the goal), of tension (in relationship to goals), all in the context of field theory (the interplay of forces that maintain or break homeostasis) and the interplay between the individual and the environment. The subjects of their research were often children, and many of the experiments were captured on film. Figure 2.7, below, is another example of topology being applied to psychology.

Figure 2.7
Topology of an eating situation (Lewin, 1936, p81)

Radical at the time, and still poorly understood by many, Lewin came up with his famous systems thinking formula during his Institute of Psychology years:

B = f (P,E)

Behavior is a function of the person and the environment. Then and now, most people, when push comes to shove, believe that behavior is mostly a reflection of individual personality. When there are performance problems in organizations, the focus is on individuals. People are shuffled around, hired and fired in hopes of “putting the right people on the bus.” Lewin understood that the social bus (the primary groups in a person’s life, the organization, the society) has a huge influence on beliefs and behavior. Change the system, and you have the most reliable chance of changing the individual. His planned change methods fully incorporate this type of systems thinking, as we shall see.

By the early 1930s the system he was in, Germany during the rise of Nazism, was unbearable (Figure 2.8, below). Lewin began looking for a way out. The way out proved to be the United States. He was invited as a visiting professor at Stanford in 1932.

In 1933, as a professor, Lewin managed to breach a barrier that many of his family and friends could not.

Figure 2.8
Space of free movement for a Jewish male in pre and post WWI Germany, Crosby, 2020

In Germany it was almost impossible for Jewish citizens to liquefy assets and raise the funds needed for immigration; in the United States it was almost impossible for Jewish immigrants to be granted admittance, despite their obvious need. Anti-Semitism ran deep in the United States. In 1922, for example, Harvard President Abbott Lawrence Lowell publicly proposed a quota system to limit the number of Jewish students (Marrow, 1969, p101). The trustee’s rejected his proposal, but similar overtly racist sentiments were present in much of America’s culture. In 1931, when Lewin was applying for an academic post in the United States, eminent psychologist E.G. Boring of Harvard wrote to Stanford professor L. Terman that, “In the first place Lewin is a Jew… also the wife is a Jew and their child, who has figured in some of the movies of Lewin’s child psychology, is a ‘perfect little yid’ (Winston, 1996).”

Despite these barriers, Lewin and his wife and daughter made it to the U.S. His extended family did not. Lewin frantically did everything he could, for family and for others, even trying in 1941 to get a Cuban entry visa for his mother. As he put it in a letter to Alfred Marrow, “We have sent something like $2600 to Cuba, and have the official receipts here. We have a photostatic copy of the wire sent to Germany by the Cuban government… but the Cuban consulate in Germany says it has not received it… we finally got the Cuban government to send a second wire.” Despite his relentless efforts, he got no help from the US State Department. Sometime in 1943 his mother was shipped from Holland to Poland. (Marrow, 1969, p140). By 1944 his mother had died in a Nazi gas chamber (Benne, 1976, p28).