The formula is not as famous as Einstein’s E=mc², but it has circled around psychology to this day: In 1936, Kurt Lewin wrote down the formula V=f(P,U) in a paper, thereby laying the foundation for his field theory of the psyche. The equation expresses that human behavior (V) is not a mechanistic sequence of stimulus and reaction, but rather a constant interplay of forces in the person (P) and their subjectively experienced environment (U).
From highly abstract to lifelike
Lewin preferred to represent this hypothetical field of forces, the balance of which is constantly rebalanced in everyday life, spatially. He sketched the “living space” – an unsuspicious term for a Jew who fled to the USA from the Nazis – as an oval surface. Inside there is a point, the person. The repulsive and attractive forces acting on them are shown as vectors.
Kurt Lewin knew how to translate such highly abstract concepts into real-life examples. At conferences, the professor of child psychology liked to illustrate the field forces’ game with one of the small films that his team made at the University of Iowa repeatedly documented scenes from observation studies and experiments. One shot shows a child half-heartedly trying to save a plastic swan from the oncoming waves.
Speaking in field theory, the swan has an “inviting character” for the child and is attracted to it. However, the threatening waves act like a barrier between the child and the goal of his wishes: he is in an “approach-avoidance conflict”. Many of the terms coined by Lewin – such as group dynamics, level of demands or substitute action – have found their way into our everyday language.
Even more milestones in psychology
2016 Marianne Soff creates a field-theoretical burnout model
1996 Pierre Bourdieu develops a social field theory
1963 Friedrich Winnefeld examines the “pedagogical field” in the classroom
1920 Wolfgang Köhler attributes consciousness to field forces in the brain
1909 Jakob von Uexküll calls the world of experience of organisms “living space”
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