Kurt Lewin- Historical Background 1935 Published "A Dynamic Theory of Personality“ 1942 President of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues 1944 Organized Research Center For Group Dynamics,M.I.T.

Kurt Lewin- philosophic values Philosophies Credited to Lewin which apply to the nursing field: Lewin believed behavior is a function of the person in their environment. Lewin’s action research uses “a spiral of steps, each of which is composed of a circle of planning, action, and fact-finding about the result of the action”.

Kurt Lewin- philosophic values continued Force field analysis provides a framework for looking at the factors (forces) that influence a situation, originally social situations. It looks at forces that are either driving movement toward a goal (helping forces) or blocking movement toward a goal (hindering forces). Lewin described change as a three-stage process. The first stage he called unfreezing, the second stage the change occurs, the third and final stage he called freezing where the new mindset is crystallizing and one's comfort level is returning to previous levels.

Kurt Lewin-Influences General Influences Most Specific Influence Psychology Sociology Nursing Political Science Law Medicine Cultural anthropology education Much of Lewin’s work is attributed to Gestalts Psychology which stresses the importance of studying the subjective way in which an object appears in people’s minds, rather than the objective, physical attributes of the object.

Burnes, B., & Rune, T. B. (2012). Leadership and change: The case for greater ethical clarity. Journal of Business Ethics, 108(2), 239-252. Smith, M. K. (n.d.). kurt lewin: groups, experiential learning and action research. Retrieved October 10, 2012, from http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-lewin.htm