Kurt Lewin (1890-1947) was a pioneering figure in social psychology, known for his work on group dynamics, personality theory, and change management. He introduced key concepts such as the force field analysis, which assesses the factors influencing change, and the life-space theory, which dynamically represents an individual's psychological environment and behavior. Lewin's influential ideas continue to shape understanding of personality development, conflicts, and social interactions in various fields.

1. KURT LEWIN
(1890 - 1947)
-Unnati Shah

2. INDEX
1. BIOGRAPHY
• INTODUCTION
• EDUCATION
• KNOW FOR
• FAMOUS WORKS
• SOME CENTRAL IDEAS
2. LEWIN’S EQUATION
3. CHANGE MANAGEMENT PROCESS
• FORCE FIELD ANALYSIS
• ACTIVE RESEARCH

3. 4. THE STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY
• FIELD THEORY
• THE LIFE-SPACE
a) DIFFERENTIATION
b) CONNECTIONS BETWEEN REGIONS
i. NEARNESS-REMOTNESSS
DIMENSION
ii. FIRMNESS-WEAKNESS DIMENSION
iii. FLUIDITY-RIGIDITY DIMENSION

4. 5. DYNAMICS OF PERSONALITY
• ENERGY
• TENSION
• NEED
• VALANCE
• VECTOR
• LOCOMOTION
6. DEVELOPMENT OF PERSONALITY
7. TYPES OF CONFLICTS
8. OTHER CONCEPTS
• EINSTELLUNG
• LEVEL OF ASPIRATION

5. • German-American
psychologist
• Known as the modern
pioneers of social,
organizational, and
applied psychology.
• Recognized as the
"founder of social
psychology"
• first to study
group dynamics and
organizational
development.

6. • Kurt Lewin left Germany as the Nazis
consolidated their power.
• He adapted and applied the Gestalt
perspective to personality theory and social
dynamics and called it "Field Theory."
• He was also responsible for the founding of
the National Training Laboratories in Bethel
Maine, best known for "sensitivity training"
for corporate leaders.

7. EDUCATION
• In 1909, he entered the University of Freiburg to
study medicine,
• Transferred to University of Munich to study
biology.
• He became involved with the socialist
movement and women's rights .
• He served in the German army when World
War I began.
• Due to a war wound, he returned to the
University of Berlin to complete his Ph.D.

8. Known for-
• Group Dynamics
• Action Research and
• T-Groups. ( in which the learners
use feedback, problem solving, and role play to
gain insights into themselves, others, and groups.
The goal is to change the standards, attitudes and
behavior of individuals.)
Influenced by-
• Gestalt Psychologists
• Kurt koffka
• Jacob L. Moreno

9. Famous Works
• Lewin coined the notion of genidentity. (Two objects
are not identical because they have the same
properties in common, but because one has developed
from the other.
• He also proposed a perspective as an alternative to the
nature versus nurture debate.
• Lewin suggested that neither nature (inborn
tendencies) nor nurture (how experiences in life shape
individuals) alone can account for individuals'
behavior and personalities, but rather both nature and
nurture interact to shape each person.

10. SOME CENTRAL IDEAS:
• An interest in intergroup conflict, and in conflict between
individual and group wishes.
• We always exist in relation to a social context. Gestalt
ideas can be applied to understand our place in our social
and environmental situation.
• We are culturally taught how to see, look, and act.
Changing these is in a real sense changing the perceived
culture within which we life.
• Change can be carried out in ways that respects and
humanizes our opponents as well as ourselves. If carried
out in violent, dehumanizing ways, it is self-defeating.

11. Lewin's Equation
• The Lewin's Equation, B=ƒ(P,E), is a psychological
equation of behavior.
• It states that behavior is a function of the person
in their environment.
• When first presented in Lewin's book Principles
of Topological Psychology, published in 1936.
• It gave importance to a person's momentary
situation in understanding his or her behavior,
rather than relying entirely on the past.

13. Change process/ change management
process
Lewin described change as a three-stage process.
Stage 1- "unfreezing"
• The Unfreezing stage is probably one of the most
important stages to understand the world of change
we live in today.
• This stage is about getting ready to change.
• It involves getting to a point of understanding that
change is necessary, and getting ready to move away
from our current comfort zone.
• This first stage is about preparing ourselves, or
others, before the change

14. • Unfreezing and getting motivated for the
change is all about weighing up the 'pro's' and
'con's' and deciding if the 'pro's' outnumber
the 'con's' before you take any action.
• This is the basis of what Kurt Lewin called the
Force Field Analysis.

15. Force field analysis
There are lots of
different factors
(forces) for and
against making
change that we need
to be aware of. If the
factors for change
outweigh the factors
against change we'll
make the change. If
not, then there is low
motivation to change.

16. Stage 2: Change - or Transition
• According to him change is not an event, but rather a
process. He called that process a transition. Transition is the
inner movement or journey we make in reaction to a change.
This second stage occurs as we make the changes that are
needed.
• Example- Imagine bungee jumping or parachuting. You may
have convinced yourself that there is a great benefit for you
to make the jump, but now you find yourself on the edge and
get scared. But when you do it you may learn a lot about
yourself.
• Using role models and allowing people to develop their own
solutions also help to make the changes.

17. Stage 3: Freezing
• This stage is about establishing stability
once the changes have been made. The
changes are accepted and become the new
norm. People form new relationships and
become comfortable with their routines.

19. Action Research

20. ACTION RESEARCH Lewin was especially
interested in investigation of how to get
people to act in ways that were of benefit
both to them and the larger social body.
He was less interested in "pure research"
that had no implications for practical
application.

21. The Structure Of
Personality
The first step in defining the person
as a structural concept is to represent
him or her as an entity apart from
everything else.

22. Nonpsychological Environment
PsyEnvironment
The Structure Of Personality
LIFE SPACE, L= P+E
Person

23. • As a child develops, the personality system
expands and differentiates. His view of the
psychological environment becomes better.
He does a better job of distinguishing between
the real world and the "irreal" world of wishes
and fears.
• The child finds new social roles and learns
new social norms and codes

24. Fact
• A fact for lewin is not only an observable
thing, it is also something that may not be
directly observable but can be inferred from
something that is observable.

25. FIELD THEORY
• Behavior must be derived from a totality of
coexisting facts.
• These coexisting facts make up a "dynamic
field," which means that the state of any part
of the field depends on every other part of it.
• Behavior depends on the present field rather
than on the past or the future.

26. The Life Space
• The field is the life space, which contains the
person and his or her psychological
environment.
• The psychological environment is the
environment as the person perceives and
understands it, and as related to his needs.

27. • The places where you physically go, the
people and events that occur there, and your
feelings about the place and people.
• One part of this is the places you inhabit
every day, or at least regularly. Another part
is places you've been to, but go very
occasionally or may never go back to again.
• Your life-space , includes the world you
travel into through reading, movies, TV, what
other people say, etc.

28. • There is also personal mental life space--the
places you inhabit in your mind, your fantasy
world, etc..
• When you're planning what to do tomorrow,
your life-space is not the room you're in now
but the place where you expect to be
tomorrow.

29. • The person and the psychological environment are
divided into regions that undergo differentiation.
• Regions are connected when a person can perform
a locomotion between them.
• Locomotion includes any kind of approach or
withdrawal--even looking at a pretty object or away
from an ugly one, or listening to liked music and
avoiding disliked or uninteresting music.
• They are said to be connected when communication
can take place between them.

30. • The region that lies just outside the life-space is the
foreign hull.
• The person is a differentiated region in the lifespace,
set apart from the psychological environment by a
boundary.
• A barrier may block the locomotion called for by
vectors.
• A barrier exerts no force until force is exerted on it.
Then it may yield, or resist strongly.

31. DIFFERENTIATION
• Lewin maintained that the structure of the
person is heterogeneous and not
homogeneous, that is it is subdivided into
separate yet intercommunicating and
independent parts.
• To represent this state, the area within is
divided into ZONES.

32. • Firstly, divide the person into two parts.
• The outer part – Perceptual-motor region
(P-M)and
• Central part- Inner-personal region.
• Secondly, divide Inner- personal region into cells.
• Cells adjacent to Perceptual-motor region are called
Peripheral cells and the cells in he center are called
Central cells

33. The concrete representation of a particular person in a
concrete psychological situation, at a given moment,
the exact number and relative positions of the
environmental subregions, as well as the precise
number and relative positions of the inner-personal
sphere, must be known if one is to understand
behavior.

34. CONNECTIONS BETWEEN REGIONS
• The life-space is now represented as a
differentiated person surrounded by a
differentiated environment.
• Boundaries are impenetrable barriers that
divide the person and the environment into
independent and dependent.

35. ACCESSIBILTY BETWEEN REGIONS
• 3 important ways are
1. Nearness-remotness dimension.
2. Firmness-weakness dimension.
3. Fluidity-rigidity dimension.
• By utilizing these concepts, most of the
possible interconnections in the life-space
can be represented.

36. Nearness- Remotness Dimension.-
• When placing the regions close together the
influence of one upon the other is great and
placing them far apart, the influence is weak.
• Influence decreases as the number of
intervening regions increases.

37. Firmness-weakness dimension-
• The resistance of a boundary, or its
permeability, is represented by the width of
the boundary line.
• If very thin line- represents weak boundary.
• If very thick line- represents strong
impermeable boundary.

38. Fluidity-rigidity dimension-
• Take into account the nature of the
medium.
• Fluid medium- Responds quickly.
(flexible)
• Rigid medium- Resists change. (inelastic)

39. Number Of Regions
• The number of regions in the life space is
determined by the number of separate
psychological facts that exist at any given
moment of time.

40. THE DYNAMICS OF PERSONALITY
• A structural representation of life space is like a
road map. A good road map contains all of the
information one needs to know to plan any trip, just
as a good structural representation of persona and
their environment contains all of the facts one needs
to know to account for any possible kind of
behavior.
• Just as the map cannot say which trip the person is
going to decide, same way neither can a detailed
picture of life space tell us how a person is going to
behave.

41. ENERGY
• Person is a complex energy system.
• The kind of energy that performs psychological work
is called Psychical energy.
• Psychic energy is released when the psychic system
attempts to return to equilibrium from the state of
disequilibrium.
• Disequilibrium is produced by increase of tension in 1
part of the system , as a result of external stimulus or
internal change.
• When tension throughout the body is equalized, the
output of energy is halted and total system comes at
rest.

42. TENSION
• Tension is a state of an inner-personal region related
to other inter-personal regions.
• Tension in a particular system tends to equalize itself
with the amount of tension in surrounding systems.
This is called a process.
• A process may be thinking, remembering, feeling,
perceiving, acting etc.

43. NEED
• An increase of tension or the release of energy in
an inter-personal region is caused by the arousal
of need.
• It may be a psychological condition or a desire
for something.
• Lewin, In the first place he did not give a list of
needs because he thought it would be never
ending.
• Secondly, the one thing that really matters is to
represent those needs that actually exist in the
momentary situation.

44. • Lewin also distinguished between needs and
Quasi-needs.
• A need is due to inner state such as hunger.
• Quasi-needs is the specific intention like
satisfying ones hunger by eating only at a
particular restaurant.

45. VALANCE
• A system (region) in the person is said to be in a state
of tension whenever a need or intention exists.
• A positive valence exists when the person thinks the
region will reduce tension by meeting present needs,
while a negative valence exists when the person
thinks the region will increase tension or threatens
injury

46. VECTOR
• A vector is a force that arises from a need that acts
on the person and determines the direction in which
he or she moves through the psychological
environment.
• For every region with a positive valence, a vector
pushes the person in its direction. With a negative
valence, a vector pushes the person away from it.

47. LOCOMOTION
• It is the representation of the specific path that a
person will transcribe in moving through his or her
psychological environment.
• Often two or more vectors act on the person at the
same time, and then the locomotion is some kind of a
"resultant."

48. DEVELOPMENT OF PERSONALITY
• Development according to lewin is a continous
process in which it is difficult to recognize discrete
stages.
• He also believed that the use of an age scale for
describing development is not really adequate for
understanding psychological growth.
• It is not enough to say that 6 year old do things
3year old don’t do. One must account for the change
using the concepts of field theory.

49. TYPES OF CONFLICTS
• approach-approach. We want two different things
that we like both of (that have "positive valences," in
Lewin's terms.
• avoidance-avoidance. We have to pick one or the
other alternative, but dislike both. (both have "negative
valences."
• approach-avoidance. We can either have, or subject
ourselves to, one thing that has both positive and
negative qualities.
• double approach-avoidance. We must choose between
two things that each have both positive and negative
qualities.

50. EINSTELLUNG (‘person perception’)
• Each of us learned from the people who were
important in our lives as we grew up how to
perceive events.
• Our mind-set tells us how to look, how to observe. It
makes the world intelligible to us within a particular
frame of reference.

51. MIND SET
• A dramatic demonstration of Lewin's idea of mind-set was Harold H. Kelley's
classic study on "The Warm-Cold Variable in First Impressions of Persons.“
• A class received a written introduction to a guest lecturer they were about
to hear.
• The instructions differed in just one word: Half were told that the lecturer
was "a rather warm person who..." and the other half, "a rather cold person
who...." They then heard the same lecture. Afterward, the latter group rated
the lecturer significantly more negatively.
• Lewin's conception, and Kelley's study, launched the whole “person
perception" area of study.

52. LEVEL OF ASPIRATION
• A basic idea: Using your skills at the level at which
they are, you can succeed.
• In Lewin's view, level of aspiration is determined by
two factors:
• The person's relation to certain values
• The person's sense of realism in regard to the
probability of reaching the goal.
• A characteristically successful person,will chose
goals that are within his or her capacity to reach,
and will raise those goals once having achieved
them.

53. LIMITATIONS
• A limitation of Lewin's method- diagramming the
life space, difficulty in representing B's life space as a
factor operating in A's life-space.
• Although lewin did not reject the idea that heriditary
and mutation play a role in development, nowhere
did he discuss their possible influence, nor did he
assign them any place in his conceptual
representations.

54. ADVANTAGES
• Kurt Lewin, tried to resolve the limitation of behavioral theories by
giving his famous equation: behavior is a function of the person
(genetic nature) and the environment.
• First one to give the change theory.
• Life space theory well explained.
• Tension system well explained.
• He had a major impact on appreciation of groups and how to
work with them;
• he pioneered action research;
• he demonstrated that complex social phenomenon could be
explored using controlled experiments.
• first to study
• group dynamics and organizational development.