Lewin’s experiments in context

We have seen that unlike other Gestalt experiments, Lewin’s groups’ studies had a particular design (e.g.

they included interactive elements) and a different research focus. These specialized in processes and motivations of human conduct, which prepared Lewin’s latter real life experiments. It is worth mentioning, thought, that Lewin expressed interest in applied research even before starting his collaboration with the Gestalt group. As early as in 1920, he published the essay “The Socialization of the Taylor System”

354Cf. [Dembo, 1931, 10ff.].

(Die Sozialisierung des Taylorsystems) with the subtitle A Fundamental Investigation of Industrial and Work Psychology (Eine grundsätzliche Untersuchung zur Arbeits- und Berufspsychologie), in which he presented his ideas on how applied psychology could be of use to improve industrial labor processes.

In modern terminology, he suggested to improve economic efficiency and labor productivity through the optimization of workflows, for instance, by means of increasing the workers’ participation in the labor management. (“Jedenfalls muß der Arbeitskonsument in irgendeiner Form mitbestimmen können, ob eine Veränderung des Arbeitsprozesses einzuführen ist oder nicht” [Lewin, 1920, 19].)³⁵⁵ One may thus conclude that it was Lewin’s initial and persistent interest in the social involvement of (psychological) research that predefined his experimental engagement in applied (e.g. industrial) psychology in the US.

The fair bandwidth of experimental styles subsumed and integrated under the auspices of Gestalt al-lowed to integrate Lewin’s independent and cross-disciplinary research style between 1922 and 1933.

Due to the considerable freedom of research that existed at the Berlin Psychological Institute Lewin’s extensions of the experimental practices were appreciated rather that criticized.

"Über kurz oder lang werden wir diese ganz hervorragende Kraft ohnehin durch eine Beru-fung verlieren. Inzwischen würde das Berliner Psychologische-Institut sich garnichts Besse-res wünschen können, als dass Herr Lewin, solange wie es irgend geht, bei uns bleibt. Da es sich schon jetzt um eine wissenschaftliche Persönlichkeit ersten Ranges handelt, deren Ar-beiten in der ganzen Welt grösstes Ansehen geniessen, darf ich wohl von der Überreichung einer Liste der Lewin’schen Arbeiten absehen. Ihre Zahl wird dauernd durch Beiträge von der grössten Bedeutung erhöht" (Köhler, 1 August 1932).³⁵⁶

Despite Lewin’s close association with the Gestalt school in the Berlin years, eventually the original and applied character of his research alongside his talent to attract like-minded collaborators played a major role in the “branding” of a separate research branch, i.e. “social psychology” (see Chapter 11).

355On Lewin’s essay on Taylorism see also [John et al., 1989].

356Köhler, W., request of the contract extension of an assistant, in: GStA PK, I. HA, Rep.76 Va, Sect. 2, Tit.X, Nr. 150, III, p.350.

9 Development of Lewin’s conceptual system: A roadmap

“[Unsere Arbeit] soll jene Begriffe systematisch darstellen, die sich in unseren experimen-tellen Arbeiten zur Dynamik der Person und der psychischen Umwelt bewährt haben. Ein Hauptziel dieser Arbeitsweise und Begriffsbildung ist es, an Stelle vager Bezeichnungen wirkliche Begriffe für die Darstellung von Person und Umwelt zu entwickeln. Diese Begrif-fe müssenstreng sein, so daß sie als Konstruktionselemente in die psychischen Gesetze und in logisch saubere Ableitungszusammenhänge eingehen können, und sie müssen zu-gleich fähig sein, die psychologischen Sachverhalte hinreichend adäquat wiederzugeben”

[Lewin, 1934, 249, emphasis original].

As Lewin states in 1934, the key to the development of the psychological discipline consists in the elaboration of “strict” concepts for the representation of the person and the environment. These concepts have to relate to each other in a “functional” manner and reflect psychological laws. Lewin attempted to implement these idea(l)s, that were as clearly pointed to in his philosophical papers some years earlier (Chapter 5), through his experiments at the Berlin institute. As delineated earlier, Lewin assembled his own circle of PhD students at the Psychological Institute of Berlin shortly after his appointment in 1922. The groups’ experimental investigations were probably kicked off in the late 1923 by Georg Schwarz’ studies on the alteration of habits (Über Rückfälligkeit bei Umgewöhnung)³⁵⁷ and endured until Gleichschaltung of the Institute in 1935. Some publications appeared a few years after that, i.e.

Margarete Jucknat’s work that was submitted to the university in 1936 and published in 1938.³⁵⁸ The last publications appeared under considerable difficulties, as becomes clear from Köhler’s letters to Wertheimer:

”Fräulein v. Restorff, die mich drüben in Psyfo Sachen vertritt, schreibt mir soeben, dass der Verlag nicht mehr in der Lage ist, über eine Berliner Arbeit von Jucknat, die noch von Lewin stammt und schon zum Druck vorgesehen wurde, das Sinessüberschrift (Untersuchungen...

herausg. von K.L.) zu setzen. Es stellte sich zugleich heraus, dass eine Arbeit von Wallach [Student Köhlers, nach 1933 ebenfalls in die USA emigriert und war dort als Assistent Köh-lers in Swarthmore tätig] überhaupt nicht angenommen werden kann. Das ist [ein] Eingriff [der] den Inhalt der Zeitschrift betrifft. Ich nehme an, dass Du einverstanden bist, wenn ich die Herausgeberschaft niederlege” (W. Köhler, 2 June 1937).³⁵⁹

At least three presumably nearly completed dissertations remained unpublished but are cross-referenced in other publications.³⁶⁰

In the present chapter we shaw that the basic model of psychic activity presented by Lewin in 1926 was expanded through the experimental contributions of Lewin’s students. Most of the student studies resulted in the formation of new concepts. These concepts extended the preexisting conceptual system block by block building upon each other. Accordingly, the elaboration of the conceptual system paralleled the structure of the experimental program. This chapter tackles the question: How do experiments—their analytical part—shape concept formation? Or more concretely: How did the experiments conducted by Lewin’s students in Berlin extended his early system knowledge (discussed in the Chapters 6 and 7)?

As pointed out earlier, Lewin’s philosophy of science advocated a theory-driven style of experiments.

This implies that the experiments outlined in the previous chapter supplied the ground work for the generation of new knowledge. However, after the interactive part of the experimental procedure this needed to be extracted and framed into concepts. First of all, we shall discuss Lewin’s and his circle’s analytical strategy applied in this matter.

357Cf. [Schwarz, 1927].

358See [Jucknat, 1937].

359Köhler’s letter to Wertheimer, quoted as in [Wittmann, 1998, 29]. The original can be looked at in the Max Wertheimer Heritage, Boulder, Colorado.

360Appendix A gives a chronological overview of the contributions in Lewin’s experimental program while appendix 4 includes all the accessible information on the students’ experimental periods.

Secondly, we reconstruct the conceptual development of the Lewin’s Berlin Experimental Program.

While a few reconstructions of the program already exist these do not focus on the developmental aspects as much as we do. In his Dynamic Theory of Personality (1935) Lewin pointed to system-atic cluster-like, and in his research articleLewins Berliner Experimentalprogramm(1992, 2007) Horst-Peter Brauns argued in favor of a network-like interconnections of works in the BEP. Both structural suggestions are, however, derived from the major psychological research themes that were tackled in the program.³⁶¹ By contrast, we split the BEP research into three qualitatively different development stages work with respect to both its systematic and chronological order. A visualization, i.e. a tree-like “roadmap”, reflects the conceptual development of the BEP. The diagram in figure 14 illustrates the order and co-dependancies in which research themes gradually emerge throughout Lewin’s research program. It will serve as basis of the further discussion.

Due to the gradual evolvement of the research program I subdivided the BEP into three stages. The experimental stages roughly correspond to three subsequent (but somewhat overlapping) periods of time.

1. Constitutive stage (up to 1926): Elaboration of basics 2. Expansion stage (1926 to 1931): Branching out 3. Maturity stage (1931 to 1936): Diversification

On the left side of the diagram in figure 14 one will find a timeline, on which the individual stages are separated from each other. As our investigation shall show, these periods differ in terms of (a) the quan-tity of conceptual and experimental output, (b) the complexity of research themes and elaborated con-cept types (involved knowledge resources), (c) the type of concon-cepts. Overarching research themes are framed black and marked in blue letters. Dynamic concepts have a white, topological concepts a yellow background. Seminal research themes of the BEP, such as the resumption and accomplishment of inter-rupted activities, the level of aspiration, substitutions, the anger affect, person-environment-interaction and social conflicts, are linked to the appropriate program development stages. The emergence of most crucial concepts is referred to the stages and, in some cases, the research themes.

361Other structural suggestions to the BEP have been made earlier. In 1935, Lewin writes a “systematic survey” of his Berlin group’s work for the American reader. Therein he suggests the conceptualization of the experimental investigations along its research foci framed as “on the structure and dynamics of the personality and of the psychological environment”. He groups the accomplished student investigations intothematic clustersrelative to their research themes; cf. [Lewin, 1935a, ch. 8; espec. p.

240]. Brauns offers another structuring approach to the BEP. In the short articleLewins Berliner Experimentalprogramm(1992, 2007) he structures the program into “first order theoretical contributions”, which are barely based on other students’ work, and (subsequent) investigations of “second” and “third theoretical order” that build upon earlier research. Brauns suggests a network-like rather than chronological understanding of the program structure; cf. [Brauns, 2007, 141]. Both Lewin’s clusters and Brauns’

network point to seminal links between the single works of the experimental program, yet, rather neglecting the evolvement of the conceptual system underneath over the duration of the program.

(-)+ (-*+

(-(, !

need & quasi-need ! equilibrium

processing of energy into action resultant force

intention energy forces lttValence (positive/ negative) storage real accomplishment irreal accomplishment fluid vs. solid material

reality layers

satisfaction (-*(

satiation over-satiation

$#

redirection . . ! .

&& %

% % ! compli d

!

% %n

! !!

Figure 14: Reconstruction: Development of concepts over the duration of the BEP

9.1 The analytical challenge of Lewin’s experiments

We shall briefly elaborate the individual steps of the analytical procedure Lewin’s group tried to imple-ment. The first analytical challenge in the BEP experiments was to grasp the whole variety of different behavioral processes that probands exhibit in the experimental situation. This was followed by the sub-division of processes into genetically different event units. In a next step of the experiment real events were to be “decoded”. In other words, “genetic event types” needed to be carefully derived from the observed behavior. At times this led to the embodiment of observation into (new) concepts.

According to Lewin, the primary challenge of the concept formation is the “correct” description of the observed actions in experimental observations (protocols). The experimenter needs to identify “stages and phases of the entire process”; in other words, he or she was to subdivide the observed conduct into homogeneous process units, starting at the phenomenological level, further digging into the complex in-depth motives and the mental correlations hidden at the genetic level (cf. Chapter 5). Amongst others, Karsten employed this experimental strategy in her research on mental satiation:

“Eine experimentelle Untersuchung der psychischen Sättigung wird zunächst zu fragen ha-ben, was für Phänomene als Sättigungserscheinungen auftreten, welche Stadien und Pha-sen im Gesamtverlaufe des Sättigungsprozesses zu beobachten sind. Eine solche zunächst auf Beschreibung eingestellte experimentelle Untersuchung mag dann die Grundlage abge-ben für die Erörterung kausal-dynamischer Probleme des Sättigungsprozesses [. . . ] über-haupt die Erörterung der Bedingungen, unter denen es zum Sättigungsprozeß bzw. zu den speziellen Sättigungsphänomenen kommt” [Karsten, 1928, 145].

When subdividing investigated processes into process units the combination different scales might be of use.

"Die Protokolle, die öfters eine beträchtliche Länge erreichen (ein Versuch umfaßt bis zu 15 Schreibmaschinenseiten), müssen auf verschiedene Weise ausgewertet werden. Bisweilen werden größere Verlaufsschnitte als Einheit zugrunde gelegt, bisweilen kleinere. Zerlegt man den Verlauf in lauter kleine Abschnitte, die man gleichmäßig behandelt, so geht häufig der allgemeine Verlaufscharakter,z. B. das Schwunghafte oder Träge des Verlaufs, verloren. Es gibt wiederum andere Fälle, wo nur das Vorwärtsschreiten in kleinen Schritten aufschluß-reich ist und die konkrete Entwicklung des Falles aufdeckt. So kann man nicht allgemein angeben, wie groß die Schritte zweckmäßigerweise gewählt werden müssen. Einerseits soll möglichst wenig von der phänomenalen Art des Verlaufs verlorengehen, andererseits gilt es, diekonkreten Einzelerscheinungenmöglichst zufriedenstellend in ihrer Eigenart zu erklären”

[Dembo, 1931, 7f.].

The challenging question is thus how to subdivide the total process into homogeneous units. In our example, i.e. Dembo’s experiment, all acting “directed towards the task” (in Richtung der Aufgabe) was subdivided into the following process types: thinking, acting, discussing, trying, imaginative solutions to the experimental task, reinterpretation of this task.³⁶²

In a next step a skilled observer needs to decode every action sequence up to its “dynamic” or “conditional-genetic” structure. For instance, phenomenologically identical actions may turn out to be “genetically”

intentional and goal-oriented or, in contrast, affect-guided.

“Will man die affektiven Prozesse ihrem dynamischen Aufbau nach wirklich verstehen, so darf man sich, wie erwähnt, keineswegs nur an die Höhepunkte affektiver Ausbrüche halten, sondern muß eingehend auch die ’schwächeren’ Äußerungen berücksichtigen [. . . ]. Manch-mal verraten gewisse Wünsche, Voraussagen oder bloße Gedanken eine starke und tiefe, äußerlich aber noch beherrschte affektive Spannung. Endlich muß man gewisse Handlun-gen in Betracht ziehen, die zunächst wie zweckhafte, zielgerichtete Aktionen aussehen, aber bei genauerer Analyse doch eine affektive Komponente zeigen. Wir nennen sie affektiv ge-tönte Handlungen” [Dembo, 1931, 16].

362Cf. [Dembo, 1931].

In the case of Dembo’s study of the anger affect the “decoding” of “genetic event types” consisted in the determination of every process unit’s affective charge. Dembo’s experiments showed that the probands’ actions were at times re-directed towards a “phantastic” solution, i.e. a solution that did not resolve the original problem but annulled the proband’s intention to do so. This was the case if, the experimental participant increasingly experienced the original goal as impossible to achieve. As will have demonstrated in section 9.4, Dembo and Lewin coined the concept of “irreal solutions” upon these experimental observations; they subdivided the proband’s behavior (or observed process units) into two categories, i.e. directed towards the “real” and the “irreal” solution to the assigned task. Dembo’s elaboration of the duality of “real” and “irreal” activities represented a refinement of the pre-existing system of concepts.

Truth be told, there was merely another experimental psychologist, who could have competed with Lewin’s meticulous efforts to systematically analyze each and any minor step of his experimental pro-cedure. Thus, not surprisingly, did his first biographer and friend Alfred Marrow give Lewin the label

“practical theorist”, and others attributed to him the famous saying “nothing is as practical as a good theory" (as was instanced above). Nonetheless, the described segmentation and decoding of observed processes represented but a part of Lewin’s analysis of experimental data. With the assistance of his disciples he developed a specialized tool to analyze particular psychological processes with even more focus and precision. This be elaborated in the following chapters.

Im Dokument Shaping the field (Seite 116-122)