What I would like you to do is to find a topic or person from this week's chapter (or from the previous week) that you were interested in and search the internet for material on that topic. You might, for example, find people who are doing research on the topic, you might find web pages that discuss the topic, you might find a video clip that demonstrates something related to the topic, etc. What you find and use is pretty much up to you at this point. Please use at least 3 quality resources.
Once you have completed your search and explorations, a) I would like you to say what your topic is, b) how exactly it fits into the chapter, and c) why you are interested in it. Next, I would like you to take the information you read or viewed related to your topic, integrate/synthesize it, and then write about the topic in a knowledgeable manner. At the end of your post, please include working URLs for the three websites. Keep in mind that it will be easier if you keep it to one topic.
Additional instructions: For each URL (internet resource) you have listed. Indicate why you chose it and the extent to which it contributed to your post.
For my topical blog I have decided to research the Zeigarnik effect a bit further. A Russian psychologist named Bluma Zeigarnik developed the idea of the Zeigarnik effect while sitting in a restaurant in Vienna. She was a graduate student of Lewin, often the class would meet informally for hours at a time at a café across the street from the institute. There, Zeigarnik, Lewin, and the other students noticed that the waiters only seemed to remember orders which were in the process of being served. When the orders were completed, the orders evaporated from their memory. To test her theory, she asked participants to do 20 or so simple little tasks in the lab, specifically she tested 164 teachers, students, and children by giving them simple tasks that only took a few minutes to finish. Some of the time the participants were interrupted half way through. Afterwards she would ask them what activities they remembered doing and people were about twice as likely to remember the tasks during which they’d been interrupted than those they completed.
Sixty years later a man named Kenneth McGraw and some of his colleagues carried out another test of the Zeigarnik effect. In this version of the study, participants had to do really tricky puzzles, except they were interrupted before any of them could solve it and told that the study had concluded. Despite their efforts, over 90% of participants carried on working on the puzzle anyways.
This effect can even be tied into todays media, especially television shows. In the TV business, they use cliffhangers to keep viewers hooked on to see next weeks episode in a series. You tune in to next weeks episode because the mystery of what happened is ticking away at you in the back of your mind. Charles Dickens even used cliffhangers in his novels and had people waiting at the docks in New York for the latest installment of his novel to arrive from Britain. In my reading, I stumbled across a simple way to beat procrastination by using the Zeigarnik effect against yourself. We are faced with procrastination when we know we have a large project or paper that we need to start, but we may avoid beginning the task because we don’t know how or even where to start. The challenge is to just start anywhere with the project, but not with the hardest bit. Try something easy first and usually the rest of the project or paper will tend to follow. Although this technique is very simple, we tend to get caught up in the large picture and dread sets in. The only setback with the Zeigarnik effect is if we are not particularly motivated to achieve our goal or we don’t expect to do well, but this is true with goals in general: when they are unattractive or impossible we just don’t seem to want to bother with them.
http://www.spring.org.uk/2011/02/the-zeigarnik-effect.php
-Blog post about explanation of effect and tying it into television series.
http://www.psychwiki.com/wiki/Zeigarnik_Effect
-General overview of Zeigarnik effect
http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=37538&cn=117
-Longer explanation of effect and how to use it to help reduce stress
For this week's topical blog I decided to look further into the experiment's Kohler did dealing with problem solving and using chimps.
One of the first things I learned was that the experiment's Kohler did were not only specifically performed on chimps. He also used dogs, cat, and a little girl for his subjects during these experiments. Although his most famous experiments were the ones that were done for chimps. These experiments, included two problem solving situations. The first situation was named the "stick" situation in that Kohler gave the chimps two different bamboo sticks, each of different lengths and diameters. He hypothesized that eventually the chimps would have an insighful moment and figure out the problem. Meaning he would put the two bamboo shoots together and reach them outside the cage and get the banana he desired. The problem found when he ran this first situation was that the chimp "Sultan" didn't have the insightful experience that Kohler had hoped for. It acutally took Sultan many times til he was then helped by Kohler and finally got that he was suppose to put the two sticks together to solve his hunger problem. This presented a real problem for Kohler's theory and hypothesis. Instead this experiment seemed to be confirming Thorndike's theory or trial and error of problem solving rather than isight.
The second situation that Kohler experimented with the chimps was the "box" problem. This situation involved leaving the chimps in an empty room with a couple of boxes scattered on the ground. The chimps were deprived of any food so they would be hungry when they entered the room. A banana was hung by a string from the ceiling to temp the chimp. The purpose was for the chimp to have an insightful moment and figure out that they could reach the banana by putting the boxes one on top of the other and climbing. This experiment also didn't work out the way that Kohler had expected. It took the chimp a fairly long time and a lot of trial and error to figure out that the best way to get the banana was to stack the boxes on top of each other.
During the YouTube video a scientist who presented for national geographic they put food in the bottom of a tube at the side of the cage of a chimp. Eventually through trial and error the chimp came up with what I consider to be an ingenious solution of putting water in it's mouth and spitting it back out into the tube with the food so that eventually the food would float and with enough water the monkey could grab the food with his fingers and eat it. This reminded me a lot of the skinner box in that the chimp had to figure out the correct steps to come to the conclusions that gets him what he wants.
One of the final things that I found when browsing around the internet was that there is a lot of inforamation out there that still considers Kohler's experiments a success. Now I may be completely bias in my opinion that Kohler's experiments not only did they fail but they acutally reinforced Thorndike's theories. But I do believe that a lot of the information out there that I found didn't tell the whole story. They describe the chimps final solution as insight and has no mention of the time or other ways that the chimps took to figure out the problem. It seemed to me that this subject is another one that many people may take a side without knowing it. I know I am on the side of Thorndike but I do think that there is such thing as insight, I just don't believe that Kohler did a good job in proving it.
http://www.preservearticles.com/201102073868/brief-note-on-kohlers-experiments-on-insightful-learning.html
-Breif summary of Kohler's box and stick experiments
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPz6uvIbWZE
-YouTube video of a chimp experiment similar to Kohler's
http://www.studymode.com/essays/Wolfgang-Kohlers-Experiment-Insight-Learning-2121.html
-essay that explains the chimp project that calls the experiment a success and the insight with no mention of the trial and error.
This week I decided to do more research on Wolfgang Kohler and his work with apes. Kohler was born in Reval, now Tallinn. His family was of German origin, and shortly after his birth, they moved back to Germany. He was raised in the setting of teachers, nurses, and other scholars. His contributions contributed to the creation of Gestalt Psychology.
Kohler’s most significant contribution to psychology was through his animal research. He began his work on The Mentality of Apes after his time as director of the Canary Island Anthropoid Station, and it was later published in 1917. While at this research station during WWI, he focused nearly all of his time on a group of nine chimpanzees caged there for research purposes. Kohler's most intelligent chimpanzee was Sultan. In the simplest case the desired object was placed on the other side of a fence at the end of an alley. The ape, according to Kohler, conceptualized the Gestalt by turning back down the alley and going around to the other side of the fence. In one famous test there were two bamboo sticks in a chimpanzee's cage, but neither of them was long enough to reach a banana outside the cage. After many attempts the chimpanzee pushed the thinner of the two sticks into the hollow inside the thicker one and then drew the banana toward himself. The animals also learned to use boxes as "clime-upon-ables" to reach desirable lures. However, Kohler's tests were not very well controlled. Often several chimpanzees were in the cage at the same time. His critics found a number of alternative explanations, and stated that animals might have learned from imitating one another. Kohler proposed that the apes used “insight,” not trial and error or chance to accomplish these tasks, an idea that he would later develop into a theory of learning.
While researching his work with apes, I came across work of his with other animals. He also experimented with chickens but to a lesser extent than with the apes. He trained chickens to peck at a gray board when shown with a black board, then observed them peck at a white board when shown with a gray board. He reasoned that they were able to see the relationship between the stimuli, instead of simply learning a single task. Kohler called this process “transposition,” which can be seen in humans when one transfers the knowledge from one situation to another. His experiments were criticized as less than rigorous and poorly controlled. Nonetheless, the information he generated proved useful in understanding animal and human learning. Kohler wrote extensively on his research, much of which was published through the journal that he co-founded. He was a pioneer in understanding thought processes and the errors within, such as with judgments and associations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Köhler
Information on Kohler’s early life
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/kohler.htm
Information on Kohler’s work with the apes/ Sultan
http://faculty.frostburg.edu/mbradley/psyography/wolfgangkohler.html
Information on Kohler’s work with the chickens
I decided to research Robert Yerkes from chapter eight since last Thursday’s blog was a little different. I was interested in Yerkes because of the controversy he caused with his intelligence testing methods during WWI. Robert was largely known for his study of human and primate intelligence using comparative psychology, but what caught my attention was his Alpha and Beta tests on soldiers. Something interesting that I found when researching was the criticism of Yerkes’s study as only a measure of acculturation. I have heard of the term ‘melting pot’ explaining the mixing of different cultures, but this term describes the psychological changes that occur when cultures meet together. The other interesting thing that I first read about in the chapter and then further researched was that whites also scored low, 47.3% exactly were feebleminded. I have my own bias, but I believe that intelligence depends on many factors that cannot be fully measured by a test. I also find it ironic that nearly half the white men scored low, because I do not believe that race should necessarily be a factor. It is hard to come up with a simple definition of the word intelligence; Robert Yerkes summed it up as ‘a complexly interrelated assemblage of functions, no one of which is completely or accurately known in man’. Although I find this very confusing, I also do find truth in it. I take it as man is not one to judge or measure how intelligent someone else is. Yerkes believed in hard science and the fixed quantity of intelligence. He used three different types of mental tests: Army Alpha, Army Beta, and an Individual Examination. The Alpha test was a written test for recruit that could read and have became to be known as the modern IQ tests. Examples were unscrambling a sentence, filling in missing parts, or analogies. The Beta test, however, was for the recruits who could not read and was pictorial. An example would be a maze or a picture completion task. The last of Yerkes mental tests was individually examining recruits who failed the Beta tests and used spoken words. Overall, whether or not Robert Yerkes study was accepted or not, it was a pivotal movement in the history of psychology by providing the first group intelligence tests. The tests also gained popularity in the public and private sectors because of all of the publicity and provided the data used to fuel future controversies with racial differences.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Yerkes
comparative psychology, primates, acculturation, half of whites scored low
http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/yerkes.shtml
impact on history of psychology, definition of intelligence
http://www.holah.karoo.net/gouldstudy.htm
Army Alpha, Army Beta, Individual Examination, hard science, fixed quantity
The topic I wanted to look more into was Wolfgang Kohler and his work on problem solving with apes and other animals. He was born on January 21, 1887 in Reval, which was part of the Russian Empire. However, his family moved to Germany when he was very young. He grew up around teacher, nurses, and other scholars. This is when he developed his interest in science, along with interest in the arts, especially music. He studied at the University of Tubingen, the University of Bonn, and the University of Berlin. While he was at the University of Berlin, he became very interested in the differences between physics and psychology.
During the first World War, Kohler began to work with animals in the Canary Islands. He had a large pen with nine chimpanzees of different ages. In the pen, he had objects like boxes, poles, and sticks for the chimps to experiment with. He constructed a number of problems, which usually included them trying to get food. Dogs and cats were used in previous experiments, but they couldn’t solve the problem. In his experiments, one of the chimps, named Sultan, became his favorite subject as he seemed more intelligent than the other chimps. In one instance, Sultan joined two bamboo sticks in order to retrieve a banana that was outside of the cage. In another experiment, a different chimp solved a problem of reaching bananas attached to the ceiling by stacking several crates and climbing up the crates. In a YouTube video I found, a chimp was faced with a problem. There was a treat at the bottom of a clear tube, but the chimp’s hand was too big to reach it. The chimp then went on to fill his mouth up with water and spit it in the tube. He did this over and over until he was able to reach the treat. Kohler didn’t like the idea of trial and error. Rather, he thought the apes solved the problems using insight. A lot of his experiments and ideas were published in 1917 in a book called, The Mentality of Apes.
Kohler did other experiments with animals that didn’t include apes. In one particular experiment, Kohler worked with chickens. He trained the chickens to peck at a gray board when they were shown a black board, and then he watched them peck at a white board when they were shown a gray board. He argued that they were able to see the relationship between the stimuli, rather than just learning one simple task. He called this process transposition. This can be related to humans when one transfers knowledge from one situation to another. However, a lot of his work was criticized as being less than rigorous and poorly controlled.
Kohler was fired from his work when Hitler was in power, because he was a Jew. Once he was fired, he decided to move to the United States in 1935. He became a professor at Swarthmore College, and he remained there for twenty years. In 1956, he became a research professor at Dartmouth College and became the president of the American Psychological Association. He remained there until his death on June 11, 1967.
http://faculty.frostburg.edu/mbradley/psyography/wolfgangkohler.html
-Info on his work with animal problem solving
http://www.pigeon.psy.tufts.edu/psych26/kohler.htm
-More info on his work with animal problem solving
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPz6uvIbWZE
-Video showing a chimp solving a problem
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_K%C3%B6hler
-General info on Wolfgang Kohler
The topic I chose to learn more about was the Hedwig von Restorff and the Von Restorff effect. It was mentioned very briefly in the other Gestalt research and cognition part of the book. It relates to the chapter because she used the gestalt principles to show the figure-ground relationship between numbers and syllables in relation to memory. I chose this because it was something that stuck out to me and I like learning more about memory.
The Von Restorff effect also known as the isolation effect was named after Hedwig von Restorff in 1933. This effect assumes that an item sticks out and is more likely to be remembered than other items. The modern theory of this effect reiterates perceptual salience and accompanying differential attention to the isolated item as imperative for enhancing memory. Although Restorff’s paper disagrees, she explained that the difference between the isolated and the surrounding items is not sufficient for the outcome of isolation effects, but must be considered in similarity.
Von Restorff worked as Wolfgang Kohler’s assistant at the Psychological Institute of the University of Berlin until he resigned due to the Nazi interference with the Institute. During her time as his assistant she published two papers, the second with Kohler. She came up with the idea of the effect in her paper on the topic of spontaneous reminding. Her work also had reverse effect. You remember the item that stands out, but the way it grabs your attention is taken away from the other items on the list.
Taylor and Fiske’s attention age was an advancement to Hedwig’s Von Restorff effect. In advertising shown in the youtube link, you try to make the product stand out like with the iPod example of having it be white consistently in images of black and bold colors.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sct7oUNthas
-this clip showed the basic idea of the Von Restorff effect in a short way
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Restorff_effect
-this source provided me with information on her work with Kohler
http://changingminds.org/explanations/memory/von_restorff.htm
-this source showed examples of the Von Restorff effect
After reading chapter 9, I wanted to research more on the proximity principle of Gestalt psychology. This relates to the chapter in the Principles of Perceptual organization section on page 299. Proximity is important in our everyday life, because this is used in marketing systems and how we perceive is grouped.
1. The first resource I found describes the basic grouping patterns of gestalt psychology, and proximity of two separate groups come together into a larger set and can be organized. Dots, or words can be used to see clusters on a page instead of a large number of individual dots. This value is important in psychology because each person may view figures or groups of things differently, and using proximity of objects, allow researchers to understand how people interrupt different grouping skills.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principles_of_grouping
-definitions and examples of organization laws, and background of terms
2. The youtube video clearly uses examples of a snow mountain in the shape of a vodka bottle, to relate to the brand of alcohol. Before a person knows what the image is, they may interrupt it differently, and group the object in different ways. However, after a person sees that the bottle is in the mountain, they will perceive it the next time they encounter the picture. The second example of the FEDEX sign is used in the marketing sense of colors schemes, and there is an arrow located between the E-X. These messages are used for marketing or design purposes in our everyday life. Without the proximity sense of objects, psychologists and media specialists wouldn’t have a marketing tool for the public.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Av5Ap3nxToM
-video on the marketing signs/logos used with proximity
3. The final resource relates visual perception into unified wholes and we uses similarity to perceive a pattern. The examples used are 15 figures formed in a whole of a tree. This is possible because of their proximity (location) of the figures, and the perception of our minds. Our brain can group, separate, and pair figures together or view them individually. Proximity is not possible without the organizing visual elements in research. Gestalt psychology has embraced laws of perception forms and continue to be used in our daily life as stated by the examples above.
http://graphicdesign.spokanefalls.edu/tutorials/process/gestaltprinciples/gestaltprinc.htm
-picture examples of the different perception laws
Coming across the principles of perception in this chapter, made me realize that these forms are used in my everyday life. Proximity of figures, similarity and good continuation all work together to perceive figures.
The Gestalt theory was constructed by 3 theorists, Kurt Koffka, Max Wertheimer, and Wolfgang Köhler. It was created in attempt to explain perception, and define basic principles of the theory. All three were pupils of German philosopher Carl Stumpf. When these three theorists began to study this theory, a lot of their focus was on visual perception, as well as illusion. Out of their research came the phi phenomenon, and later Prägnanz. Say you have an image of multiple simple, elementary shapes that overlap. Prägnanz is the ability that our mind has to pick out these shapes without a lot of effort, it’s the way we can perceptually organize as well as neurally organize an image (or stimuli). The principles of Gestalt theory can be seen primarily in art, but also architecture, nature, and even camouflage for the military. While this seems like a “fluffy” subject to many, this theory has worked itself into the way we problem solve, learn and think, the way we learn about personality, as well as social psychology.
About Gestalt psychology
http://facweb.cs.depaul.edu/sgrais/gestalt_principles.htm
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/232098/Gestalt-psychology
About Prägnanz
http://changingminds.org/explanations/perception/gestalt/pragnanz.htm
Wolfgang Köhler was a gestalt psychologist interested in “insight” in animals. In fact, he was a co-founder of the school of gestalt psychology. We learned during our reading that gestalt means “whole”. Köhler was particularly interested in apes, and wrote a book called The Mentality of Apes. Köhler believed that problems could be solved if one reassessed the problem and rearranged elements within the problem. This is the process that Köhler called „insight“. Wolfgang Köhler was actually an American, but he was German educated. Köhler attended University of Berlin and did numerous studies with animals. Köhler found that cats and dogs were not able to solve the same problems that chimps were. His most famous studies involved food outside of a cage that was not easily accessible.
One article I read about Köhler stated that it is important to note that just because the dogs and cats were not able to access the food in the same way that the chimps did does not mean that they were any less intelligent. This is because the cats and dogs were not familiar with the barriers, therefore they were unable to use any latent knowledge, as the chimps did. Luckily Köhler was able to catch some of this on film. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcBGAWNCipI). I also found a very interesting video from National Geographic on newer studies related to his. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPz6uvIbWZE). After doing extensive research in Berlin, Köhler fled back to the United States due to harassment during the Nazi era.
In addition to his studies with animals, he also published and co-published many scholarly journals and articles. One famous article that he published was called Gestalt Psychology, which was an American version of a pervious work that he did in German regarding Gestalt Psychology.
One thing that came to mind while researching this topic goes back to Darwin. I think that the fact that these apes are able to use insight helps support Darwin’s views. If these apes are able to figure out problems as complex as they are, who is to say that we didn’t evolve from them? Also, the fact that we share 99% of genetics as apes further supports Darwin’s views. I think that if Darwin were alive at the same time period as Köhler, that Darwin would want to use Köhler’s findings to support his theories. One question that came to mind is that if we really evolved from apes, then why did all apes not evolve? An explanation could be that we were a different species of the apes that we know now.
http://www.pigeon.psy.tufts.edu/psych26/kohler.htm
This website explained his studies in greater detail. It discussed a lot of things that our reading did, but it gave more detail and also talked about the studies leading to his.
http://faculty.frostburg.edu/mbradley/psyography/wolfgangkohler.html
This website gave me a better understanding of his life. It did not go into too much detail about his studies, but I found it biographically helpful.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_K%C3%B6hler
I don't usually use Wikipedia, but I found this article to be pretty informative.
For my topical blog in relation to chapter 9 I decided to take a closer look at the life and works of Kurt Lewin. Kurt Lewin was born in 1890 in Mogilno, which was a small village in the area of Prussia that is now considered to be Poland. Kurt was born into a middle class Jewish family. In 1905 he and his family moved to Berlin and soon after Lewin enrolled in the medical program at the University of Frieburg and then transfrerred to the University of Munich and studied biology. While at the university he got involved in social causes like anti-semitism and women's rights, which would carry through with him for the rest of his life. He the went to the University of Berlin to get his Ph. D in philosophy when he was called away to fight for Germany in WWI, but returned home injured and would later earn the Iron Cross for his work in the military. While in the military, he was also awarded his Ph.D under Carl Stumpf. When Lewin returned home he began to lecture at the University of Berlin and became well known for his zest and energy while doing so. He was also able to make a living teaching and publishing many books and articles.
It was at this time that Hitler was beginning to take power in Germany. In 1930 Lewin was able to travel to Stanford to be a visiting professor, but when her returned he found that conditions were worse for Jews like him and his family. With the conditions as they were he took a job working at the Cornell School of Economics even though that was not his field of intrest and moved his wife and daughter to the US. After a couple of years he moved to Iowa and worked at the Child Welfare Research Station at the University of Iowa. While in Iowa he published his first book in English, "A Dynamic Theory of Personality" as well as at least one other book and many articles.
It was at this time that he began to study more social behaviors, with intrests in war efforts, group dynamics, action research, field theory, and democracy among groups. With all this it still seems like something was missing. He wanted to start a research facility for group dynamics, so he did. In 1944 he started The Research Center for Group Dynamics at the Massachussetts Instititute of Technology. It was at this time that he became involved in action research, wanting to solve certain social problems that excisted. In doing so he joined the American Jewish Commission, but not long after Lewin died of a heart attack in 1947.
Lewin is considered to be a Gestalt Psychologist because of his need to us psychology to better society and to be involved in solving social problems. He beleived that the implications of the whole were much more dynamic and productive in nature than by focusing on breaking up the body and finding the reasons why we do what we do. This has direct correlation to his Field Theory with behavior in which the three main points are that behavior is made up of all the pieces, those pieces all depend on each other, and the behavior is because of the current cituation.
He also looked at group theory and democracy in groups. His study of three types of leaders led him to be considered the first social psychologist. In this study he looked at three types of leaders, democratic, autocratic, and laise-fair. In this study he found that the group dynamics differed greatly depending on the type of leadership style that was used. He found that autocratic leaders made the members feel scared and submissive and because of this were not able give as much imput. Laise-fair leaders were not able to drive the group to be productive. Democratic leaders were seen to be the best of the choices, because members felt like the were able to contribute and had to accomplish the task at hand.
The last topic of Lewins research that I would like to discuss is action research. This is his research on the ability of people to make a difference on social problems. With this research he wanted to solve real world problems with solutions. He found that cyclical pattern worked. This was identifying the problem, researching possible solutions, take action, evalutate the action and move on to the next step. The major goals of course being to make society a better place. Lewin contributed many other theories in psychology despite the short life that he lived.
Oops here are my sources!
http://www.psychology.sbc.edu/Kurt%20Lewin.htm
-General overview of life as well as major contributions
http://www.psicopolis.com/kurt/kltutto.htm
-More overview of life and more in depth info on contributions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Lewin
-Basics on the Life and Works of Lewin
I wanted to learn more about Kurt Lewin’s life and learn more about a couple of the theories he came up with. I got interested in him in this chapter; because I thought his field theory was interesting. The text book talked about his field theory, and how “he believed that understanding a person’s behavior required knowing about all the forces acting on a person at a given moment.” I agree with this, and it got me more interested in who he was. His field theory led to field research and he believed that he could study using experiments on social and psychological phenomena.
Kurt Lewin was a German-American psychologist. He was born in Prussia which is now a part of Poland. Kurt entered college going into medicine and then went into biology. He got a PhD at the University of Berlin, where his family moved, in the experimental study of associative learning. He is known as one of the “modern pioneers of social, organizational, and applied psychology.” Lewin immigrated to the United States after World War II. He saw the social environment to be interacting with human consciousness. He also transferred the Gestalt model and put it into everyday situations. In this experiment he “manipulated complex situational variables, and observed the effects.” The field theory approach has had a huge impact on modern research.
Lewin was also influenced by Einstein. He used Einstein’s field physics and put it into psychology. He made a suggestion in the debate nature versus nurture, and he suggested that neither by itself can claim individuals behavior and personalities, but both of them interact together to shape a person; personally I think this is a great suggestion, because I think both nature can have an influence on the way people behave. Kurt also developed a psychological equation of behavior. The equation is B=f(P,E). This equation is saying that B (Behavior) is a function of the P (Persons) who are in the group and the E (Environment). According to Wikipedia, it contradicts most of the “popular” theories. It also gave importance to an individual’s “momentary situation” to help understand his or her behavior, rather than solely using and relying on the persons past experiences to determine why their behaviors are the way they are.
Kurt Lewin was also a mentor to some respectable psychologists today, such as, Leon Festinger who was known for his cognitive dissonance theory, and three environmental psychologists, and the founder of modern conflict resolution theory and practice.
Lewin also made an early model of change. He described change as a three-stage process, and called the first stage “unfreezing.” It included “overcoming inertia” and taking away the existing “mind set.” This stage is where the preparations are made. The second stage is where the change occurs the transitioning, and a lot of support is needed in this stage from the persons family, friends, coaches, etc.. Finally the third stage is called “freezing;” it can also be called “refreezing.” This stage is where the stability sets in after the change has been made. According to the second website, Kurt Lewin wanted to reinforce change so that it would be accepted in the future.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Lewin
This website talked a lot about his life and how he was a mentor; also told about his behavior equation.
http://www.change-management-coach.com/kurt_lewin.html
This website talked about Lewin’s change theory.
http://www.lifecircles-inc.com/Learningtheories/gestalt/Lewin.html
This website told where he was born, who he was influenced by, and talked about his field theory.
This week while reading chapter nine, I was extremely interested in the history of Nazi Germany relating to some of the famous psychologists of that time. Primarily I was fascinated with Wolfgang Kohler and the role he may or may not have played as a German spy during WWI while living on the Tenerife Island studying apes. I felt that the story was interesting but the claim against him did not seem to match up considering the fact that he wrote the last anti-Hitler article, and actually left Germany because he refused to sign a Hitler loyalty oath. He was friends with many Jewish psychologists that were forced to leave the country with their families and he was a major advocate for education and science. The fact that Hitler claimed science would have to wait for a couple years while he tried to rid the country of so many great minds makes me think that Kohler would never support a dictator that truly believed in a cause like this. However, the urge to find out more information still nagged at me and so I decided to research Kohler for this blog entry and perhaps find enough evidence to clear his name (I am being facetious).
Kohler accepted an invitation from the Prussian Academy of Science to study chimpanzees on the island of Tenerife in 1913. Shortly after he began his work the war had started and he claimed that he could not leave the island until the war had ended. According to sources, this is one of the pieces of evidence against him in trying to prove that he was in fact a spy. He also was said to have a very powerful radio which was kept in the attic of his home on the island that was used to report the sighting of enemy ships passing through so that they could be sunk. There is not incriminating evidence in these stories, and the radio could have most likely been used to just report to the mainland because he was so isolated. It does seem strange, however, that he was so public in criticizing Hitler and yet was never arrested or mistreated by the Nazis for his conduct. Perhaps he had to make a trade to help them in order to protect his life.
Another piece of evidence I found to be interesting is that the apes of Tenerife were not actually native to the island itself. It seems strange that they would transport all of those animals to a different island than the one they had been on. It also seems strange that this island was also being occupied by Ernst Groth whom was chief of the German spy ring residing on Tenerife. Perhaps all of Kohler’s protests and articles and slander of Hitler were to create a distraction of what he was really up to. While most of this information is mere speculation and it would be incredibly difficult to look at all of the evidence that occurred almost 100 years ago and say for sure whether he was or was not a spy, it is still very fascinating to think about. Most evidence against him could very well be argued with a logical explanation. I am not sure if I believe he wasn't a spy, but for the sake of his Jewish colleagues and education I do hope that he wasn't
.
http://faculty.frostburg.edu/mbradley/psyography/bioscopes_wolfgangkohler.html
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Wolfgang_K%C3%B6hler
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1423718?uid=3739640&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21101200043693
I wanted to research the wife of Kohler, Thekla, but I found almost nothing about her so I sadly decided to move on. I ended up wanting to learn more about Kurt Koffka because he was a professor at Smith, a women’s university until his death. Koffka was one of the main German guys of Gestalt psychology who came to the US because he was Jewish. I chose to look into him to see why he chose Smith and maybe to find a bit more about why he chose to settle there. Also about the women he influenced, the women in his life really anything to do with him and women because this book is so much about men I get a bit bored.
One of the first things I noticed when researching him was that he divorced and it was confusing for a few reasons. I thought divorce in this era was not common. Then his story got stranger when I kept reading. I found that he divorced his second wife to go back to his first wife. I found this to be very unusual for the time period of the early 1900s. And then once again he went against the norm when he divorced his first wife and remarried his second wife! His first wife was named Mira Klein. They met in Germany and she helped him with his research. Klein began as one of his subjects in Berlin when he was studying with Stumpf. He met his second wife Elisabeth Ahlgrimm at the Psychology Institute at Giessen where they both studied.
Eleanor Gibson was one of the most famous female psychologists he influenced at Smith. She was an American psychologist who did a lot with perception in children. She had to leave Smith to get her PhD because there was no PhD program there. She went to Yale and was hoping to study with Yerkes but “was promptly shown the door, with Yerkes proclaiming “I have no women in my laboratory.” So it seems that Koffka might have been a bit more open minded to women when other men of this period were not yet. After finishing her PhD she returned to teach at Smith.
Molly Harrower is another of Koffka’s Smith mentees. She was born in South Africa while her Scottish parents were on vacation. Harrower came up with the Rorschach for group therapy. She is also famous for writing about the psychology of Nazi war criminals and “developed a scale, based on a set of projective techniques, that effectively predicted which patients would profit from psychoanalytic treatment.” Somehow she was able to get her PhD with Koffka at Smith in 1934 when there was no program for that there.
I found out that famous female psychologist Mary Henle was also very influenced by Koffka while she studied at Smith. His Gestalt theory had an impact on her and stayed with her throughout her career and she even ended up doing some work with Kohler. She was also Jewish and sometimes wondered if being a woman or being Jewish held her back more.
Koffka’s second wife Elizabeth also taught at Smith and outlived him. She taught European Intellectual History there.
http://www.feministvoices.com/mary-henle/
One on Koffka’s students Mary Henle
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1499&dat=19641022&id=1T0aAAAAIBAJ&sjid=jCcEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7393,1601298
An article from the 1960s about Koffka wife Elizabeth
http://psychology.jrank.org/pages/361/Kurt-Koffka.html
Info on Koffka’s life
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molly_Harrower
Info on Molly Harrower
I have decided to expand upon Kohler’s problem solving research, but more specifically, I will look at insight. I’m going to expand on our class discussion as I was incredibly interested in insight. I view it as a journey, but it seemed that most other people may have believed it to be a destination. I would like to see if there is any research to support either idea. This doesn’t fit in the chapter as well as most peoples’ topical posts; however, I believe that it fits with Kohler’s research in problem solving. Gestalt Psychology also talks about the “insight” moment. Both the problem solving and insight moments were discussed in this chapter. The idea that when someone discovers something they have an “AH HA” moment or a moment of “insight” is the destination point of problem solving. I am interested in it mainly because it is so abstract and unique. It can also be individualized. Yet it’s still researched and an important part of problem solving.
Wikipedia gave a definition of insight that seems more technical and also seems somewhat contradictory to my idea that insight is the journey. It states that insight is the understanding of a cause and effect relationship in specific context. This makes it make more sense that “insight” fits with problem solving. Just as a chimp is able to figure out that when two sticks are put together just right, they fit like a puzzle.
Another interesting argument is that there are several related meanings of insight. This is interesting to me as we discussed this in greater detail during class today. This several meanings idea for insight makes me view insight as being more of something on a spectrum. It can be anything from a single fact of information to a result of understanding something. It could also be and inward understanding or an outward action. There are also many adjectives to give it even more meaning: observation, deduction, perception, impending, etc.
Looking up information on Insight also pushed me in the direction of a couple other psychologists. The German Psychologist Karl Buhler was referenced. Buhler was said to have originally coined or created the term as her referred to the “understanding of how to solve a difficult problem”. He made it also sound as if insight is sudden.
I believe that the idea of insight is related to associationism and the idea of an epiphany. While researching more about Gestalt theory, I noticed that his theory talks about the breaking apart of elements and pulling things out of the situation as a whole. It talks about looking at things as they really are. This is like what we talked about in class today as I stated that the more detail we break things into the more details we can find within each detail. It sounds like Gestalt theory looks at problem solving from a break down approach.
Gestalt’s ideas make insight appear to be more of a journey as it is a built of the parts. On the other hand, I believe that Kohler looked at insight as an “AH HA” moment with the chimps. Thus, Kohler makes insight appear to be more of a destination. As I looked at the research related to insight, I have learned that insight appears to be subject to an objective definition for each experiment in which it is used. It seems that, according to the research, insight has not been viewed as having multiple definitions or even being a problem until we discussed it as a class today. It’s pretty comical that we have pulled apart the research and experiments so much that we have discovered variables that have not yet been viewed as variables.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insight -Defining “Insight” as well as related subjects
http://www.pigeon.psy.tufts.edu/psych26/kohler.htm -Kohler’s work on Insight
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/insight -the dictionary definition of insight
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_B%C3%BChler -More about Karl Buhler, linguistics, Gestalt Psychology, and his view on the term “insight”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestalt_psychology -Gestalt Psychology
The area I chose to do further research on was with action research. This is in the chapter with Kurt Lewin who is the founder of action research. The reason I am interested in the subject is because it reminds me of a violence prevention seminar I took and I thought that the idea behind it was very positive and even effective in real world situations.
One of the reasons action research is so important is that it moves beyond just observing behavior and begins to try and help people respond better to and for society. Areas such as, behavior modification and even abnormal psychology are in ways subsections to action research and have benefited greatly from its fundamental idea which is to improve human behavior. Up until Lewin began pushing for psychology to take action much of the research done was just observed. Scientists would observe different mental disabilities and different reactions to different stressors, but there was no real move to try and use this research to better the human race. Real world examples of how action research is used can be seen in things such as leadership and violence prevention meetings. People are educated on different circumstances, like abuse, and then also educated on how to deal with these situations. This allows for a now larger population who knows what to look for in problem cases and also how to handle these situations. In the long run this betters our society. This is why I like action research so much and am a fan of Lewin for starting this ideology.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_research
- This is where I learned about the ideology of action research.
http://www.web.ca/robrien/papers/arfinal.html
- This is where I learned about areas that relate to action research.
http://physicsed.buffalostate.edu/danowner/actionrsch.html
- This is where I learned of some of the uses of action research.
This week I decided to further research functional fixedness. After reading the topic of Duncker’s studies on the cognitive processes of college students after performing an exercise that led to prove functional fixedness, I decided to further investigate why people tend to fall into this way of thinking. The exercise that Duncker performed was giving a group of students three objects next to cardboard wall: a candle, a pack of matches and a box of tacks. The task it to attach the candle to the wall so that the candle burns properly and doesn’t drip wax onto the table or floor. The correct solution is to use the box of tacks as a candleholder by emptying the tacks and then tacking it to the wall and placing the candle inside. However, many people, including myself, have failed at figuring this solution out.
Why is it that people fall into thinking this way? Well functional fixedness explains that people have the inability to think beyond outside the typical function of an object. In other words, people tend not to think “outside the box.” So, how do we fix that? Well, one researcher did an experiment where he took an object and broke it down into its parts and asked to questions: Can it be broken down further? Does your description imply a use? If so, describe it more generically. An example he illustrated was the iceberg that the famous ship, Titanic hit. No one used the large, floating piece as a floatation device until help came because they did not see it as that. But taking the iceberg and breaking it down you can either describe it as something that implies hitting and sinking ships or as a floating surface. His technique, which he calls generic parts technique, takes away the main use of it to enhance creativity for other uses.
A popular question may be how can people avoid falling into functional fixedness, however, an answer is not quite clear. One research experiment done by two professors at the Kellogg school showed that students who had studied abroad had more creativity and were more likely to solve the Duncker candle problem. They further researched why traveling abroad led to more creative individuals and came up that when people adapt themselves to a foreign culture, their creativity is enhanced.
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/05/overcoming_functional_fixednes.html
-Information on generic parts technique
http://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/index.php/Kellogg/article/living_outside_the_box
-Information on students that traveled abroad
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-stumped-problem-technique-unsticks.html
-Further information about the study of generic parts technique
I decided to read more about Gestalt psychology and to try and discover how it differed from other approaches in psychology. Gestalt psychology started in Germany. In some ways it was as much a philosophy as a psychology. It came to the United States when psychologists who developed it left Germany to escape the rise of the Nazis.
Gestalt psychology focused on our own experience. It noticed everyday experiences and from these drew conclusions about how the mind must work. This is different from doing an experiment and having the results telling us about how the mind works; for example, the phi phenomena or experience. This means that if we see a line of lights go on and off in a rapid succession we will perceive or experience motions. Phi phenomena, I learned, means apparent motion. From this and other kinds of examples, like closure, the Gestalt psychologists said that theories like behaviorism and associationism could not explain what we experience. We experience the whole, not a series of parts. Gestalt psychologists said that the whole was given in experience.
So at least two other approaches to psychology would not work for Gestalt psychologists; they opposed behaviorist like Thorndike because he said learning was a matter of associating or connected stimuli and responses through trial and error learning or that simple elements built complex behavior. The Gestalt psychologists thought there was another kind of learning and it was more important. Their example was the experiments with apes solving problems. The apes showed insight into the problem. They solved the problem, like reaching the banana, all at once. There were no trial and errors that occurred – so, according to the Gestalt theory, the animals showed insight into the problem. Learning was a “whole”-- not a bundle of stimuli and responses. So Gestalt psychology came into the United States to oppose behaviorism and it developed from there.
But they also opposed another psychology in the United States at the time. This was Titchener’s psychology. Titchener thought our experience was built up from elementary sensations, like the way water is made from the elements of oxygen and hydrogen, from the simple to the complex. But the Gestalt’s didn’t see how this could be because of things like the Phi experience- where we have the whole and not the elements. So they opposed Titchener, as well and any other psychologist who focused on the parts building the experience rather than the experience being there as a “whole”.
Gestalt psychology made the behaviorists and others look at problems and experiences that they had not thought about. It challenged their theories in an important way. It changed psychology.
I also thought it was very interesting that many of the points the Gestalt psychologists made were made from simple illustrations or experiences and not from laboratory experiments.
Websites used:
http://www.sonoma.edu/users/d/daniels/Early_Gestalt.html
-A listing of philosophers that influenced the development of Gestalt thought
http://www.questia.com/library/psychology/other-types-of-psychology/gestalt-psychology?utm_campaign=rtopics&utm_source=bing_adcenter&utm_medium=cpc
-an overview- plus links to related articles and suggested books
http://www.gestalt.org/yontef.htm
-this website is a chapter re: Gestalt psychology from a book published in 1993 by the Gestalt Journal Press titled: Awareness, Dialogue, and Process by Gary Yontef
The reading that I found most interesting was about Max Wertheimer and his theory of productive thinking in the classroom. Max was born in Prague and worked with many other famous German psychologists including Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Köhler. His work was done primarily around World War I and he did a lot of war related research. He then later become a professor and was forced to leave when Adolph Hitler became the chancellor of the third Reich. He later became a professor in America at the New School in New York. He then wrote his only famous book about productive thinking and his research on problem solving. Wertheimer also helped with the basic concepts of the Gestalt Theory with Kohler and Koffka. The Gestalt Theory was the idea of a grouping or interpreting a problem in such a way that one will find a way to solve it. This idea laid the ground work to apply his theories to education which he later did. He also used much of his ideas in basic situations, expectations, and assumptions. The basic principles with the Gestalt theory were grouping stimuli together with a behaviorism aspect. The Problem solving theory is very interesting in the idea that they were able to look at how a person can take any situation and establish what makes a problem a problem and then solve it. This concept fits great into the chapter because these German psychologists were very influential as they immigrated to America to share their new found ideas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Wertheimer - Biography and his later work.
http://www.lifecircles-inc.com/Learningtheories/gestalt/wertheimer.html - Work with the Gestalt theory and German psychologists.
http://www.jmnelson.com/studio/dance/theory/theory.htm - Principles of the problem solving theory.
I decided to look further into the work of Kurt Lewin on action research. There has been a lot of discussion about companies and how workers are treated, paid and whether they meet other various politicaly correct ideals. The chapter very briefly touches on the work that Lewin did in regard to action research. Things such as attempting to convince people to eat certain types of meat in an attempt to prevent shortages.
This approach shows how he used gestaltian ideas in his studies. The action research takes a whole, and breaks it down into steps. The first step is diagnosing the problem, in the case of dietary issues, this was recognizing the problems of food shortages. Next is a planning stage where alternate plans are considered. Then a course of action is taken, in the case of the food shortage it was to educate people on the values of eating broader ranges of meat. The results of the action are then studied and finally the findings are discussed to see what can be tweaked and made better. In response to the food shortage it was found that positive encouragement and when done in a group setting. The really good thing about this approach is that it uses the journey type of insight (see I paid attention in class!) where there is a constant learning process in place. I really enjoy the I/O side of psychology and seeing that Lewin realized that things could not simply be answered but must be constantly re-evaluated.
Lewin also believed that psychology should be more than theories that it should be about making things better. What is really interesting about this method is that it is not something that can be used in a work setting. It has been used in educational systems, coping with social changes and even economic and political plans.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OacujOkaIws&feature=related
A pretty good video about change theory….a little creepy but pretty good.
http://www.web.ca/robrien/papers/arfinal.html
This site had some good information and illustrations of the Action Research method.
http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-lewin.htm
This site contained information on other studies and perspectives as well as Lewin’s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHR8gw6derg&feature=related
Although it is a very brief video, it really shows the action research in a manner that is very applicable to issues today.
The topic I chose to write about this week is functional fixedness. I am really interested in this topic because of the controversy on whether this could be a good thing or not. Also, I am always trying to find different ways to use things, or think about things, so I decided to learn more about this topic. This topic fits into the chapter because Dunker’s studies of the cognitive processes are mentioned in the book. Throughout this chapter and book, we have read about researchers who are always trying to find ways to do things different, or think about things from a different perspective.
Functional fixedness is the tendency to fixate on only one use of an object. We tend to only see an object’s use, rather than an object itself. Functional fixedness is useful when it comes to just about everything we do in routine. For example, when we wash our clothes, brush our teeth, or cook our food, we know what each appliance is used for and we don’t have to take any time to think about how to use them or what they are used for. On the other hand, to be creative, we must be able to think of different ways to use objects other than their normal use. Not only just to be creative, but to save time, or in emergency situations, it would be helpful to be able to think of different ways to use an object. On one site , they explained that we rely so much on technology today that if we were to actually do something manually, we probably couldn’t think of any other way to do. Some examples I found from another website were: using a plastic chair as a paddle, candle stick as string (peel off the wax), and the one that really surprised me was about the Titantic. The author of this website said that if the passengers and crew of the Titantic weren’t so functionally fixed on the idea of the iceberg ruining their ship, they would have figured out that they could pull aside the iceberg and use it as a resting place without having the be in the water. Of course, in situations like this we can never really learn what we should have done until after the event is over. I think that functional fixedness is more of a bad thing than a good thing. Our ability to problem solve is very inhibited if we are functionally fixed on an object or idea. I like finding ways to use objects in different ways, and I think it is a very important characteristic to have. Being creative is key!
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/05/overcoming_functional_fixednes.html Very useful. Gave good examples
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/anthro/faculty/barrett/german-barrett-PS.pdf Another useful site which talked about how we rely on technology for so many things
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/anthro/faculty/barrett/german-barrett-PS.pdf Useful site and video which explained the ways we are functionally fixed to objects
For this week’s topical blog I choose to research Kurt Lewin. Kurt fits into the chapter because he was an advocate of expanding the areas covered within Gestalt psychology. I’m specifically interested in Kurt Lewin because of his achievements and his personal connection to the University of Iowa.
Kurt Lewin was born of Jewish heritage which would eventually lead to him fleeing Germany, despite him being a decorated soldier of Germany in World War I. In his early beginnings, it appears he had trouble deciding what he wanted to do. Lewin attended three different Universities and changed majors several times, but eventually he graduated from the University of Berlin with his PhD under the great Carl Stumpf. Kurt Lewin is considered the primary founder of modern social psychology, highly due to his equation B=f(P,E). This equation states that a person’s behavior is determined by how the environment interacts with the individual. Basically, this equation of Lewin’s rejects that nature or nurture is solely responsible for someone’s behavior. It is a combination of the two. Kurt eventually ended up in America, teaching as a guest professor at Stanford. The part I like the most though, after he got done at Stanford, is that he made his permanent move to the United States. After which, he took a teaching job at the University of Iowa. When Lewin got offered a more tempting job at MIT, he proceeded to leave Iowa and go teach at MIT several years later.
Lewin’s great discoveries still make their impacts to this day. Kurt made great contributions to Gestalt psychology, experimental psychology, and social psychology. Also, many of his students ended up being great psychologist and are now famous for their contributions as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Lewin
-Great information as always from wikipedia.
http://psychology.about.com/od/profilesofmajorthinkers/p/bio_lewin.htm
-Short and sweet biography and major contributions of Lewin's.
http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-lewin.htm
-Extensive and very detailed explanation of Kurt Lewin's life and achievements.
I decided to do research on Kurt Lewin and his leadership styles. Lewin worked with the schools of behavioral psychology and then moved on to study the Gestalt school of psychology. He was the person who proposed that both nature and nurture are involved in shaping a person. He also coined the term genidentity which was an important when talking about space-time theories. He strongly believed that behavior is a function of a person in their environment. He believed there are three types of leadership styles or climates: authoritarian, democratic, and Laissez-faire.
Authoritarian is when leaders tell people what they want done and how they want it done. They do not take any advice from anyone else. This style should only be used occasionally. This is not abusive and disrespectful, bossing people around is not what the authoritarian approach is. A good example of it being used is in an emergency situation like a natural disaster. It is a clear and easy way to lead people out of danger.
Democratic is when leaders involve a few people in helping make their decisions of what to do and how to do it. This means it involves participation and contribution. This takes more time, but it also gets more expertise because the leader may not know the get decision to make.
Laissez-faire involves more of a hands-off approach. It is also called delegative leadership. This lets everyone involved have a say in the decisions being made. The leaders will be responsible for the decisions made still. This involves a lot of trust and confidence in the people you are working with. Usually a leader uses this approach because they was to push members to work on productivity and feel that their “door is always open.”
A good leader needs to try and use all the types of leadership in order to be a good leader.
http://www.i-l-m.com/about-ilm/leadership-styles.aspx - This website gave a simple way of explaining the different leadership styles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Lewin - This website gave some background on Kurt Lewin and his accomplishments.
htpp://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/leadstl.html – This one explains the different types of leadership
http://sonoma.edu/users/d/daniels/lewinnotes.html - This gave a look into more of Lewin beliefs and works.
After reading chapter 9 I decided to do more research on Kurt Lewin. He was very interesting when I read the section about him so I figured I would get more information. Kurt Zadek Lewin was born on September 9th, 1890. He was born into a Jewish family in Mogilno, County of Mogilno, Providence of Posen, Prussia. Kurt was one of four kids in the family. His father was an owner of a small general store and also owned a farm. When Kurt was 15 his family moved to Berlin. After 4 years of living in Berlin he enrolled at the University of Freiburg to study medicine. After a year he decided to transfer to the University of Munich to study biology. When WW1 began in 1914 he enlisted in the war for the German army. After suffering a war wound he was released from the army and went back to school at the University of Berlin to get his Ph.D. with a man named Carl Stumpf which was his supervisor for his thesis. By 1921 Lewin became a lecturer at the Psychological institute of the University of Berlin. He was very popular with his students. After doing this for several years he immigrated to the United States in August 1933 after he spent six months as a visiting professor at Stanford. After briefly working for Cornell University he decided to take a job for the Iowa Child Welfare Research Station at the University of Iowa in 1935. He worked at U of I for 9 years doing various things. Lewin was known for numerous theories that he proposed over his career. One of the theories he had was an alternative to nature vs. nurture. He proposed that neither nature nor nurture alone could account for an individual’s behavior and personality. But that both of these combined helped shape the person. He eventually proposed it as an equation for behavior. B=f(P,E).Amongst all his accomplishments he had several psychologists that he mentored including Leon Festinger which was known for his cognitive dissonance theory. Roger Barker, which was an environmental psychologist and several others. Kurt was known by many as the founder of social psychology. He was one of the first few to study group dynamics and organizational development. Lewin is also famous for his field theory. This theory was influenced by Gestalt psychology. Lewin wanted to emphasize the importance of individual personality, situational variables and interpersonal conflict. The equation is part of this theory because he wanted to show that behavior is a result of both the individual and the environment. Nature and Nurture. This was also very important because this was his first theory on social psychology. Although it was an alternative to nature vs. nurture he wanted to prove that both played a part in individual’s behaviors. Along with having numerous theories proposed he also was a great writer. In his career he published around 80 articles and 8 books on different psychology topics. Another major finding that Lewin had was the research study on leadership. This was called the Lewin, Lippitt, and White study. This study was based on three types of leadership: democratic, authoritarian and laissez-fair leaderships. He put the subjects in one of those three group types to determine what leadership type worked best. The findings showed the democratic leadership type was favored which spurred on more research on leadership styles. This idea still holds true today in subjects like organizational psychology. Lewin passed away in 1947 of a heart attack at the age of 57 but his legacy lived on. He was referred to as the founding father of social psychology. He also had numerous ideas and theories that helped advance the field of social psychology. He was one of the first in his field to establish those ideas which eventually lead to more research and discoveries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Lewin
Gave me general background on his life, career, research.
http://psychology.about.com/od/profilesofmajorthinkers/p/bio_lewin.htm
Gave me an in depth biography about his life and research.
http://www.skymark.com/resources/leaders/lewin.asp
Expanded on his ideas and gave me a brief biography
http://psychology.about.com/od/psychologyquotes/a/lewinquotes.htm
This website gave me a few quotes from Mr. Lewin