Implications of the Gestalt experiments

In summary, as could be specified and exemplified, the Gestalt experimentation was in fact not limited to just one specific set of procedures. Instead, despite a clear predominance of experimental demon-strations of Wertheimer’s “good”Gestalten,a variety of stiles and approaches were characteristic of the experimental procedures in Berlin, Frankfurt and Giessen. In some cases the experimental set-up could be complex and costly (like theGanzfeld experiments) but in many cases simple paper and pencil req-uisites were considered sufficient to prove the point of Gestalt organization of phenomena. In several experiments the Gestalt psychologists employed then-common (sometimes slightly modified) psycho-physiological apparatus; yet, not to measure the isolated sensational appearances but to grasp the supposedly invariant psycho-physiological functions. Seminal shared features were small experimental samples and the request for a 100% consistency of the outcome, which naturally gave the qualitative experiments a predominance over the quantitative ones. Yet, the “humanization” of the experimen-tal subject, that built the most distinctive contrast with the elsewhere flourishing behaviorism, qualified Gestalt procedures not only as an experimental but as a social research endeavor.

Nevertheless, one should not conclude from this that the Gestalt agenda was as linear and as struc-tured as it might appear. Ash points out that the extraordinary growth of the doctrine and influence of the Gestalt school in the Weimar years substantially succeeded due to the simultaneous advancement of different research units. The Gestalt psychologists “worked through the rich possibilities of complex models of theory-laden procedure, often developed initially before 1920”. These different but related theory-laden models were implemented in open-ended research programs. In addition, research was conducted in a large variety of psychological and psycho-physiological subdomains at the same time.³³⁰

328Cf. [Ash, 1995, 222f].

329For instance, Danziger found that the Gestalt journalPsychologische Forschunghad the lowest proportion of studies with data referring to groups rather than to individual performance of major German psychology journals for the years 1920 to 1935. See [Danziger, 1987, 28].

330Cf. [Ash, 1995, 223f. and 245].

The informal democratic structure of the Berlin Institut supported collaboration and animated the ex-change of both concrete techniques as well as tacit knowledge. This way it consisted a substantial pillars of the Gestalt research.

The reality of the Berlin Psychological Institute exhibited certain parallels with procedures conducted by Külpe’s Würzburg school of psychology, such as, first of all, the importance given to qualitative inves-tigation. Further, both the Berlin and the Würzburg school attributed a high value to the participant’s subjective reports on their observations, reasoning and (specifically in Lewin’s case) feelings in the course of the experiment. Probands were asked to comment while solving their tasks; in many cases semi-structured interviews were conducted after the task-solving was finished. Given the vivid exchange of expertise between psychologists of the Weimar academia these commonalities are, of course, not ac-cidental or surprising. Another example is discussed in Chapter 6; the psychology of thought introduced by Otto Selz strikes through its similarities with the model of mental processes suggested by Gestalt psychologists (e.g. Wertheimer).

8.5 “One long discussion”: Lewin’s student circle in Berlin

Previously, we have identified Lewin’s position at the Berlin Institute as twofold, integrated on the large scale of the Weimar scholarly landscape as well as peripheral and self-dynamical at the scale of the Gestalt-scholarly micro-culture. The Gestalt group at the Berlin University offered Lewin a protecting umbrella, i.e. a combination of infrastructure, research resources and substantial work liberty which he needed to develop and implement his proper agenda, and which he had lacked as student under Stumpf. Lewin’s formal belonging to the Berlin Institute, where the core of Gestalt was established, was supported by Köhler over years. In these years, he essentially contributed to the publishing and teaching endeavor of the institute (see Chapter 4).

While Gestalt gave Lewin the infrastructural stability and a nurturing intellectual framework it also granted him the needed liberty to carry out his own increasingly independent research program. In 1926, Lewin set up an individual research program on “Psychology of Action and Emotion” as a part of which he assembled and headed a proper student circle and installed an own publication series in the Psycholo-gische Forschung. In this way, a partly autonomous research infrastructure was established within the Gestalt framework. We now turn the perspective from Lewin’s arising out of the social and scholarly culture of his time, over his positioning within the Gestalt network to hisdesigning of his own micro-universe.

As delineated in Chapter 5, the forming force of Kurt Lewin’s experiments consisted in his philosophical ideas. Obviously, the aim of Lewin’s and his group’s experiments is the winning of knew psychological insights, which are best observed in “pure phenomena”. Thus, the primary challenge of an experimental inquiry should be the reconstruction of such “pure phenomena” (i.e. strongGestaltenin a wider sense) building on in-depth theoretical knowledge. According to Lewin’s philosophical theory the type of experi-ment characterized as “Galilean” does concern the “ideal” or “pure” case rather than the “real” one. The experimentally constructed local events need to re-build this or, put differently, the experiment is always a concrete example of the ideal case.

Even in the overly unconventional and a-hierarchical of Köhler’s Psychological Institute Lewin’s style of interaction with his students was rather exceptional. He and his students met regularly for vigorous discussions of all sorts of issues, usually in the Schwedische Café across the Schlossplatz from the Psychological Institute. At first they gathered on Saturday mornings, then more often. Eventually, the group got a name, theQuasselstrippe(chatter line). Very much in contrast to Lewin’s own doctoral time under Stumpf, nearly all of the studies from Lewin’s group illustrated the importance of interpersonal interaction in their experimental work, and so did the group’s own dynamics. The discussion had a brain-storming style in which disagreement was intense. Lewin is recalled to be always full of ideas. He

would take students home with him to dinner and talk late into the night. One of the first students in this group, Anitra Karsten, recalls that working with Lewin in Berlin was “one long discussion”.³³¹

“His school became a sort of family he took care of. But the most important thing distin-guishing Kurt Lewin was his huge and devoted love for psychology. This is why everybody liked him. Then he was speaking about science for hours in any possible situation [...]. He stopped to remark his surrounding” [Yaroshevsky and Zeigarnik, 1988, 175f.].³³²

Who were Lewin’s students?

Appendix 4 gives an account of students’ contribution to the BEP, as well as on their published and unpublished work.³³³ In is remarkable that 11 of the 16 students who completed and published their doctoral work with Lewin were female, i.e. an exceptionally high share of women achieving a postgrad-uate degree against the backdrop of both the given quota at German universities overall and the Berlin University in particular. Given that in the first third of the 20th century, women in various senses occu-pied a marginal position within the German academic system this was exceptional.³³⁴ Another striking fact is that 8 of the 11 female students who completed and published their dissertations were of foreign origins (including 6 from Eastern Europe). Some were also Jewish. Of the remaining 6 male students 5 were Germans and one American.

Sprung argues that the democratic work organization and Lewin’s liberal style of leadership likely at-tracted the female students.³³⁵ Yet, since the democratic leadership was then-prevailing in the whole Psychological Institute, this argument would rather explain that the particular student group was at-tracted to the institute as a whole. However, the exceptionally high percentage of female students appeared exclusively in Lewin’s group. He carried on a similar work style with his students in the US but the women’s share was not equally significant.³³⁶

It is also conceivable that Lewin’s interest in the dynamic origins of human behavior and the research linked to life realities attracted the (female) students.³³⁷ According to Lewin’s student Bluma Zeigarnik,

“neither Wertheimer nor Köhler were engaged in personality research but it was exactly what interested me the most. Lewin was all the time thinking and speaking about one single thing: Why does a person behave one way and not another, and what are its motives?” [Yaroshevsky and Zeigarnik, 1988, 174].³³⁸ Lewin’s mentioned democratic attitude obviously included a high acceptance of marginalized groups to which belonged many of his doctoral students. Zeigarnik confessed:

“I have had difficulty with employment for two reasons. For the university I was a foreigner, and foreigners were not admitted but reluctantly. Our embassy, in turn, didn’t allow its em-ployees’ wives to work. So I became Lewin’s external staff member” (ebd. 177).

331Karsten (1978), quoted as in [Ash, 1992, 201]. On theQuasselstrippe see also [Marrow, 1969, 26f.], [Ash, 1995, 271], [Wheeler, 2008].

332From an interview with Bluma Zeigarnik. The translation from Russian is mine.

333Up until now, a small number of historians published research on the socio-academic constitution of Lewin’s Berlin students network. Brauns (1992, 2007) gave a reflexive account on the interconnections of the 20 publications in Lewin’s journal series.

Sprung (1992, 2007) discussed in particular the work of the 11 women out of the 16 mentioned students. Wittmann (1998) complimented the list with another 4 names of students who completed most of their dissertation work under Lewin’s direction but did not get the chance to publish their work in his series because of the political turmoil that did not miss out the institute around 1933. Cf. [Wittmann, 1998, 29f., 179f.], [Brauns, 2007, 125], [Sprung, 2007]. Further remarks are made in [Lewin, 1935a, 261]

and [Ash, 1995, app. 2, 421f.].

334In 1901, Baden was the first German federal state (Bundesland) to accept women to higher education. Bavaria followed in 1903, Wuerttemberg in 1904, Saxony and Thuringia in 1906, Prussia in 1908. But also the decree of 18 August 1908 from the Preußische Kultusministeriumcouldn’t inhibit unwilling professorate to exclude female students from their lectures appealing to

§ 3 of the decree: “Aus besonderen Gründen können mit Genehmigung des Ministers Frauen von der Teilnahme an einzelnen Vorlesungen ausgeschlossen werden”. In fact, female students were in distinct minority for a long period. Even after the World War I women’s higher education was by no means standard and was aggravated by various factors within academia, such as non-acceptance on the part of the male teaching staff, obstacles concerning student living facilities and the access to textbooks.

Cf. [Jank, 1990, 7-11].

335Cf. [Sprung, 2007, 152f.].

336Cf. [Wittmann, 1998, 32].

337Cf. [Sprung, 2007].

338From an interview with Bluma Zeigarnik. The translation from Russian is mine.

From a certain perspective Lewin’s situation was not much different from the one of the majority of his students. He was an originally rural Jew who moved to Berlin. As Jew in Prussia his chances to become a full professor were somewhat limited, although in fact, half-established disciplines, such as psychology and social sciences, represented niche disciplines, in which Jewish scholars and scientists achieved higher academic statuses, such as full professorships, more frequently than in others.³³⁹ However, he did not have Köhler’s aristocratic manners. The young age and appearance made him a rather untypical professor, as illustrated by Wera Mahler’s memory of her first encounter with her teacher: “How great was my astonishment when the professor appeared: in came a young man with a round, red-cheeked, apple-like face, very unlike the dignified picture of a German professor” [Mahler, 1996, 268]. Additionally, as mentioned, Lewin was not entirely on a par with the three founders of Gestalt. Wittmann (1998) goes as far as to label the matter of facts “symbiosis of outsiders” provided in consequence of “outsider sympathy”.³⁴⁰

Despite all the possible socio-demographic indications academic excellence was certainly a seminal se-lection criteria. Not only was the Institute an elitist place (see below) but also Lewin was highly selective with his doctoral students as there were too many candidates. Zeigarnik indicates that his choice fol-lowed the students’ performance in his seminars and personal encounters rather than academic grades, and he picked students with autonomous and creative work ability.³⁴¹ Excellent evaluations of the doc-toral dissertations completed under Lewin support this thesis. Moreover, Sprung’s analysis of non-linear curricula vitae of Lewin’s female students suggests their high level of steadiness and persistence.³⁴² In the later course of events this seems confirmed by several successful academic careers amongst Lewin’s students (e.g. Dembo, Zeigarnik, Karsten, Brown).

Importantly, it was the student circle that performed the largest part of his experimental research agenda and essentially shaped the conceptual system, which we expounded in Chapter 9. One may conclude that Lewin’s particular achievement consisted in the successful translation of the students’ motivation and the informal atmosphere of the Berlin Institute into a collective research dynamics that showed fruit-ful within a short time. The described group dynamics of Lewin’s intellectual circle resulted in a research agenda in which single contributions were (implicitly and explicitly) interlinked. Lewin’s students’ work had a twofold relationship with Lewin’s own research. For one thing, the student circle was implement-ing Lewin’s concepts and employimplement-ing these in the own experimentation all along its development.³⁴³ Yet, Lewin also made use of the students’ experimental findings to back up his own (theoretical) work.