Kurt Lewin (/lɛˈviːn/ lə-VEEN; 9 September 1890 – 12 February 1947) was a German-American psychologist, known as one of the modern pioneers of social, organizational, and applied psychology in the United States.

[5] He served as a professor at the University of Berlin from 1926 to 1932, during which time he conducted experiments about tension states, needs, motivation, and learning.

[4] In 1933, Lewin had tried to negotiate a teaching position as the chair of psychology and creating a research institute at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

[4] Lewin often associated with the early Frankfurt School, originated by an influential group of largely Jewish Marxists at the Institute for Social Research in Germany.

But when Adolf Hitler came to power in Nazi Germany in 1933, the Institute members disbanded, and moved to England and then to the United States.

A few years after relocating to the U.S., Lewin began asking people to pronounce his name as "Lou-in" rather than "Le-veen" because the mispronunciation of his name by Americans had led to many missed phone calls.

Following World War II, Lewin was involved in the psychological rehabilitation of former occupants of displaced persons camps with Dr. Jacob Fine at Harvard Medical School.

The Tavistock journal, Human Relations, was founded with two early papers by Lewin entitled "Frontiers in Group Dynamics".

[citation needed] For instance, he introduced the concept of hodological space or the simplest route achieved through the resolution of different field of forces, oppositions, and tensions according to their goals.

[8] Lewin also proposed Herbert Blumer's interactionist perspective of 1937 as an alternative to the nature versus nurture debate.

With the help of scholars, including Paul Lazarsfeld, there was a method through which money could be acquired for research in a sustainable manner.

[10] To demonstrate his dedication to applied research and to further prove that there was value in testing his theoretical propositions, Lewin became a "master at transposing an everyday problem into a psychological experiment".

[9] Lewin, in his beginnings, took a seemingly banal moment between himself and a waiter and turned it into the beginnings of his field research, which Lewin reasoned that the "intention to carry out a specific task builds a psychological tension, which is released when the intended task is completed" in tandem with when Sigmund Freud theorized that "wishes persist until they are satisfied.

"[9] This happenstance observation started the demonstration of the "existence of psychic tensions", fundamental to Lewin's field theory.

This concept of denying one's identity and the promotion of self-loathing as a form of coping with a dominant group's oppression represented the crisis of Lewin's own migration to the United States.

In the early 1940s, he drew a triangle to represent the interdependence of research, training, and action in producing social change.

Key to this approach was Lewin's interest in gestaltism, understanding the totality and assessing a situation as a whole and not focusing only on individual aspects.

Lewin often characterized organizational management styles and cultures in terms of leadership climates defined by[13] (1) authoritarian, (2) democratic and (3) laissez-faire work environments.

Praise and criticism in such an environment are objective, fact minded and given by a group member without necessarily having participated extensively in the actual work.

The leader remains uninvolved in work decisions unless asked, does not participate in the division of labor, and very infrequently gives praise.

When first presented in Lewin's book Principles of Topological Psychology, published in 1936, it contradicted most popular theories in that it gave importance to a person's momentary situation in understanding his or her behavior, rather than relying entirely on the past.

Given his background in Gestalt psychology, Lewin justified group existence using the dictum "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts".

He theorized that when a group is established it becomes a unified system with supervening qualities that cannot be understood by evaluating members individually.

This notion – that a group is composed of more than the sum of its individual members – quickly gained support from sociologists and psychologists who understood the significance of this emerging field.

Many pioneers noted that the majority of group phenomena could be explained according to Lewin's equation and insight and opposing views were hushed.

The study of group dynamics remains relevant in today's society where a vast number of professions (e.g., business and industry, clinical/counseling psychology, sports and recreation) rely on its mechanisms to thrive.

Lewin is associated with "founding research and training in group dynamics and for establishing the participative management style in organizations".

The Peach v Coconut analogy was later popularised by Fons Trompenaars, who said it "explains all sorts of animosities that bedevil cross-cultural friendships, business dealings and diplomacy.