Part I Conclusion: Experimental psychology between two poles 48
6.5 Comparative summary and implications
Table 3 contrasts and summarizes the discussed theories. By 1926, Lewin was successful in modeling the psychic dynamics that linked motivations to performed (or not-performed) action. More concretely, this model allowed for a descriptive analysis of psychic processes underlying behavior.
It was shown that Lewin’s system relied on a more complex and flexible process scheme than pre-ceding research in psychology of volition. Lewin, as also his Gestalt colleagues, rejected the idea of explaining all behavior with “mechanistic” links brought forward by associanist psychologists or “condi-tioned reflex” (as a similar approach was called in the behaviorist language). Instead they focuses on the non-observable, as one would say today, “cognitive” processes. While main focus of Gestalt was on processes of perception and thought, Lewin’s personal extension to Gestalt was the elaboration of mechanism responsible for human conduct, as well as the expression of affects.
Drawing on psychoanalysis as well as on psychology of will Lewin’s model was prepared to include controlled and uncontrolled, as well as consciously and unconsciously motivated conduct. Importantly, Lewin’s approach also includes the possibility of persistence of behavioral triggers over an enduring period of time (which is an important factor in Freud’s psychoanalysis, but merely considered by other experimental psychologists).
Lewin’s process model tried to subsume various elements of the different preceding approaches, while it was also able to fill some of their gaps. In other words, it differed from the formerly existing through its integrative and unifying capacity. Lewin’s approach distinguished itself by providing a more sophisticated and detailed conceptual framework for the psychological theory of human conduct. It introduced a fine-grained categorization of basic mechanisms underlying behavior. This, however, was just the outset of a far-reaching research ambition. By demonstrating that intentions and actions may be linked in a variety of ways by 1926 Lewin made the first steps beyond “isolated” research on will towards the conceptualization of a psychology of human conduct. In a broad-based program he intended to further integrate and interconnect different psychological phenomena, i.e. not only will and thinking but, for instance, aspiration and self-confidence, emotions and the degree of acceptance of reality, throughout one single conceptual system. This system was to integrate the whole psychic dimension of human conduct.
The aspirated research endeavor was designed according to the set of rules that were made public in his philosophy of science. One of the goals was the integrity of the theoretical system for the whole psychological discipline (which also corresponded to the Gestalt idea of holism). Another principle was to investigate psychological facts beyond their phenomenology. Accordingly, Lewin’s ambition was to build a system of “genetic” and “functionally interlinked concepts for the whole psychological discipline. In the following chapters we shall discuss how these hardly humble academic ambitions were implemented in
research practice. Chapter 7 introduces the second layer of the same system developed by analogy with science.
Association psychology (Ebbinghaus, Müller)
Ach Michotte / PrümSelzGestalt Lewin Mechanisms directing human conduct
“Mechanistic” links Interconnected system Link between stimulus and behavior Network of associations: Stimulus and response linked through a “reproductive tendency”
Association vs. will: Stimulus and conduct linked through a „determining tendency“
Association vs. will: Stimulus and conduct linked through an „active tendency“
“System of specific reactions"
Association and will are not isolated phenomena but parts of a whole
Association and will are not isolated phenomena but parts of a whole: conditional-genetic system underlying human behavior Character of human conduct
All action is conscious Mostly unconsciously stimulated (associative) but willful actions are controlled and conscious Controlled and uncontrolled, consciously and unconsciously stimulated conduct is possible Persistence over time
Revival of an intention is triggered through association Volition is not considered to persist over time
? Will persists over time through storage and/or redirection of mental energy Experimentation area
Memory and thinking Memory, thinking, learning Memory, thinking, learning, perception Behavior, affects, memory, learning Experimental methodology
Measurement and phenomenological observation Interactive studies. Phenomenological observation, then reconstruction of covered mental processes.
Table 3: Early experimental research in psychology of will and human conduct (an overview)
7 Natural-scientific analogies in psychology of human conduct
As established, Lewin’s research efforts aimed at the development of an elastic system of concepts suitable to analyze complex psychological processes. Hereby, natural-scientific analogies, or the so-called “dynamic concepts”, build the core of the elaborated theoretical body. In a congress paper of 1928, Lewin insists that psychologists need to ensure the discipline’s transition to “dynamic concepts of wholeness” (dynamische Ganzheitsbegriffe), such as “forces” and “energies”. In order to do so, Lewin’s system of “dynamic concepts” included theoretical constructs that adopted particular traits or functions of natural-scientific concepts. We shall discuss how Lewin shaped this set of concepts and how he struggled to functionally interrelate the different types of concepts, a goal he set in his philosophical agenda.
“Die experimentelle Willenspsychologie ist von phänomenalen und elementenpsychologi-schen Fragestellungen ausgehend sehr bald zu dynamielementenpsychologi-schen Problemen fortgeschritten.
Sie ist dabei zunächst von assoziationspsychologischer Grundlage ausgegangen, hat aber den Rahmen der assoziationspsychologischen Theorien sehr bald gesprengt und schließlich zum experimentellen Nachweis der Unrichtigkeit der assoziationspsychologischen Grundge-setze und zum Übergang zu dynamischen Ganzheitsbegriffen geführt. Damit ist der Boden freigemacht worden für eine neue, experimentelle Inangriffnahme der Frage nach den dy-namischen Kräften und Energien der seelischen Vorgänge überhaupt. Dies scheint mir ein wesentliches Charakteristikum der gegenwärtigen Lage der experimentellen Willens- und Affektpsychologie zu sein” [Lewin, 1983b, 523].
The present chapter clarifies the roots, indicates particularities and discusses the function of natural-scientific analogies employed in Lewin’s “field theory”. This means that dynamic concepts in Lewin’s system are most frequently constructed by analogy with physics (however, not as its equivalent).249 For this purpose first we outline the most impactful physiological and physical prototypes of the discussed psychological concepts. Thereafter we trace back Lewin’s field theory (as constituted by 1936) to its basic “quasi-physical” components. In doing so, the chapter discusses, how natural-scientific knowledge was employed in the context of psychology, and in particular, how natural-scientific analogies are used in Lewin’s “quasi-physical” system of concepts. We further contrast Lewin’s theoretical construct with the natural-scientific superstructure of Gestalt theory. The chapter tackles the question: In what way did the Gestalt psychologists, and in particular Kurt Lewin, re-functionalized patterns borrowed from natural science?
7.1 The place of natural-scientific concepts in the psychological theory
A range of (more or less vague) metaphors originating from physiology, mechanical physics and me-chanics was introduced into the psychological terminology as early as before the establishment of ex-perimental psychology as an independent branch of research. The rather popular analogies referred to broader concepts in mature disciplines like physics and chemistry, and were partly used as figures of speech–for example, “mechanics of the soul”, “physics of the mind”, “mental chemistry”, just as the already mentioned “psychological atomism”. The more specific ones picked up on concrete process models. For instance, all reaction time experiments operated with a physiological analogy assuming that essential psychological (similarly to neurological) processes take place between the stimulation of senses or nerves and the reaction to it.250 This famous body-soul-analogy owes it emergence to the physiologist and physicist Hermann von Helmholtz (1821–1894), who showed that one could not only
249“Physikalische Analogien können dabei häufig ohne Schaden zur Verdeutlichung herangezogen werden. Andererseits wird man sich z. B. bei der adäquaten Erfassung der psychischen Feldkräfte gewissen, sehr naheliegenden Irrgängen gegenüber immer gegenwärtig halten müssen, daß es sich um Kräfte impsychischenFelde und nicht imphysikalischenUmfeld handelt”
[Lewin, 1926b, 313].
250Cf. [Gundlach, 1989, 167, 172f.].
measure reaction times on motoric but also on sensory nervous systems, as well as to his Heidelberg assistant Wilhelm Wundt and, for instance, the Utrecht physiologist Fanciscus Cornelis Donders, who translated it into psychology.251
A concept that became central to a range of psychological theories, including Lewin’s, is that of “energy”.
The principle of the conservation of energy, and the related transformation of different forms of physical energy into each other was established in physics around 1850. Thereafter, the concept of “mental energy” was invoked in physiology and neurology. The psychological analogy with the transformation of heat into mechanical energy tried to explain the influence of bodily on mental events, andvice versa.
Just before mid-century, the Berlin physiologist Emil du Bois-Reymond (1818–1896) had provided the empirical evidence of the electrical nature of the nervous impulse, which legitimized the use of energetic language when speaking of the brain as a physical organ. Reflex processes were since then described in terms of nervous “excitation” and “inhibition”.252 Excitation circumscribed energy that could be con-ducted, accumulated and discharged. Most late 19th century models of reflex action made use of this kind of “quasi-physical” language,and there was a strong temptation to speak of processes of the mind in the same terms.253 Some, as this early “The Phasis of Force” (1857), also pointed out very specific
“correlations” and transformation channels between of physical into mental energy and forces:
“That the state of mental activity which we term the Will call so excite the nerve-force of the central organs as to occasion its transmission to the muscular apparatus, is the onIy explanation that can be offered of our power of voluntary motion. These two simple facts seem quite adequate to establish a ’correlation’ between nerve-force and mental energy, which is not less complete than that which has been shown to exist between nerve-force and electricity” [Grove et al., 1857, 392f.].
As it has been mentioned in Part I, most of the early experimental psychologists enjoyed at least some natural scientific and/or medical training. At the beginning of the 20th century, the traces of the mid-19th-century “energeticism” within psychological usage were similarly present in Germany and Britain.254 For instance, Theodor Lipps delivered a pioneering contribution with his Leitfaden der Psychologie(1903).
C. G. Jung processed the concept of energy in his “analytical psychology”, particularly in Über psy-chische Energetik und das Wesen der Träume(1928). Moreover, following Boltzmann he formulates a principle of sustainability of mental energy and a law of mental entropy (Satz der Erhaltung seelischer Energie und ein seelisches Entropiegesetz). In psychoanalysis, energetics appears not only in Sig-mund Freud’s instinct theory (Triebtheorie), but also referring to categories that are used descriptively, like cathexis (Besetzung).255 Emil Kraepelin and others extended the idea of energy conservation to human labor, which resulted in the domain named (by Hugo Münsterberg) "psychotechnics”.256
In the history of psychology of will the concept of energy played a seminal role, as well. In the late 18th century, the will had the function to translate ideas in the mind into actions in the world. In the 19th century, this model turned out to be of no more use because the physical organism had its own (physiological) energy, and was perfectly capable of motor activity. However, the idea of an energetic flow anchored in psychology. In order to preserve it the function of physical stimuli was substituted by a set of psychic stimuli, i.e. emotions and feelings. What was still needed in the psychological model was something that would give appropriate direction to the discharge of energy in movement, i.e. a separate control mechanism. Ultimately, with Narziss Ach channelling the flow of mental energy became the new role attributed to will. Ach shaped the concept of energetic volition (energisches Wollen) that interprets
251Cf. [Helmholtz, 1850, Helmholtz, 1852] and [Donders, 1868].
252The term "inhibition" itself in part originated from the operation of regulative devices in machines before it became central in Pavlov’s and Freud’s psychological doctrine. See more in [Smith, 1992].
253On the metaphor of mental energy cf. [Danziger, 1997, 62ff.].
254On the situation in Britain see more in [Danziger, 1997, 63].
255See [Lipps, 1903]; [Jung, 1928]; [Freud, 1954], originally drafted in 1895, in particular “Project for a Scientific Psychology”, pp.
347-445; [Münsterberg, 1914].
256See more in [Jaeger, 1985, 83-112].
the human will in terms of an energy supplier. Providing the right channels for energy to flow along the will became the main steering organ underlying human conduct.257 Yet, this model did not hold up long. As we have seen, Lewin’s process model was pointed to the limits of Ach’s model of volition.
The metaphor of an energy flow played a decisive role in the development of Lewin’s model of human conduct.