Kurt Lewin's Group Dynamics, Field Theory And Group Theory

Kurt Lewin’s major contribution lies in the field of Group Dynamics, Field Theory and Action Research. He modelled the social change process in organisational, particularly, industrial setups.
1. Group Dynamics: - Lewin’s definition of a group is widely accepted. Here the basic line of argument is that groups come into being in a psychological sense ‘not because their members necessarily are similar to one another (although they may be); rather, a group exists when people in it realize their fate depends on the fate of the group as a whole’ (Brown 1988: 28).
 Behaviour within a group: - After collecting experimental evidence, Lewin concluded that groups with a democratic setup were likely to perform better than ones with autocratic

In his field theory, a ‘field’ is defined as ‘the totality of coexisting facts which are conceived of as mutually interdependent’ (Lewin 1951: 240). Individuals were seen to behave differently according to the way in which tensions between perceptions of the self and of the environment were worked through. The whole psychological field, or ‘life space’, within which people acted, had to be viewed, in order to understand behaviour. (Lewin 1952). Thus, it can be concluded that an individual’s performance is strongly affected by his environment. The same person would react differently to same stimulus when faced with different environments. Thus, to influence behaviour, focus should be laid on

Most Efficient forms of the learning process: - Acc. to Lewin, learning is best facilitated in an environment where there is dialectic tension and conflict between immediate, concrete experience and analytic detachment. By bringing together the immediate experiences of the trainees and the conceptual models of the staff in an open atmosphere where inputs from each perspective could challenge and stimulate the other, a learning environment occurred with remarkable vitality and creativity. (Kolb.)
 Pillars of an efficient learning mechanism in group settings:- o Feedback:-There was a concern that organizations, groups and relationships generally suffered from a lack of accurate information about what was happening around their performance. Feedback became a key ingredient of T-groups and was found to ‘be most effective when it stemmed from here-and-now observations, when it followed the generating event as closely as possible, and when the recipient checked with other group members to establish its validity and reduce perceptual distortion’ (Yalom 1995: 489). o Unfreezing:-This was taken directly from Kurt Lewin’s change theory. It describes the process of disconfirming a person’s former belief system. Trainers sought to create an environment in which values and beliefs could be