Kurt Lewin and Soviet Psychology

The history of science shows that the presence of different schools of thought, sometimes corresponding and sometimes opposing one another, is often useful to the development of science in general. This has been particularly true for psychology. Among its many schools and approaches, one can select some which, regardless of their original methodological positions, helped in the promotion of aspects of great significance for the overall development of psychology in both its practical and theoretical aspects. The theories of Kurt Lewin and L. S. Vygotsky are specific examples. Let us briefly consider the most important positions of Kurt Lewin, but first let us note that any scientific approach is realized through its methodology. This is striking in Lewin’s theoretical approach which introduced novel ways of studying personality. Lewin did not limit himself to description or to observation, but he emphasized the need of using experimental means for studying the dynamic structure of personality. Soviet psychologists, as I will demonstrate, adopted his methods and varied them successfully. Lewin initially began with a critique of association theory. His main conclusion was that associative ties do not themselves possess activating power and, therefore, cannot alone motivate human behavior. Lewin then took upon himself the task of developing a system of concepts that could explain a multitude of psychological occurrences without reducing them to isolated causes such as association, instinct, or determining tendencies of goals.