I am fascinated by Kurt Lewin's work. I have been feeling when the subject of dissertation topic is discussed and need some help focusing. I am inspired by Lewin's concept of social psychology, as he is known to be the father of the field, and may want to use his concepts to help shape whatever it is I select to hone in on for my topic. "To understand and explain how the thoughts, feelings, and behavior of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of other human beings," Gordan Allport.
I am interested in how first year students feel, interact with, and deal with students different from themselves, especially heterosexual White students with students of color and students who identify as part of the LGBT community as they begin their higher education career at UCSB. It seems to me that social psychology is a perfect fit to use to study these first year students as it focuses on situations and employs scientific methods and empirical study of social phenomena. This discipline looks at the impact that social the social environment and interaction has on attitudes and behaviors.
In addition to the potential of Lewin helping me shape the study of my dissertation, I believe he provides excellent insight on how to approach our class project of observing an organization. First, the observance of the type of leadership that plays out in the organization is important - is it authoritative, democratic, or Laissez-Faire? Is it different amongst departments supervisors, teams?
Lewin makes the case to look at the whole by investigating the conditions and forces which bring about change or resist changing groups. His field theory that the "proposition that human behavior is the function of both the person and the environment." This can be expressed in symbolistic terms: B = f (P,E). This means that one's behavior relates to both one's personal characteristics and to the social situation in which one finds one self. So, when we are looking at an organization, we need to be thinking about why a person believes and acts the way he or she does - what are the influences and how does this person fit into the whole picture and how do we figure that out?
Edgar Schein writes that he believes Lewin correct in how to approach consulting work from a clinical perspective. It starts with the assumption that everything done with a client system is an intervention, and, unless one intervenes, there is no learning of some of the essential dynamics of the systems really are. One needs to be cognizant that the interview itself can change the system and the nature of that change will provide some important data about how the system works, as stated by Schein.
Schein's concept of process consultation is a mode of inquiry to help learn enough about the system to understand where it needs help. It is a philosophy that acknowledges that the consultant is not an expert on anything - operating from a place of ignorance. This helps the interviewer pave the way to ask enough questions to genuinely understand what is going on (or the problem) to make recommendations, which is beyond the scope of our assignment.
Lewin states that "One cannot understand an organization without trying to change it." I think our role as observers will be to push at change by asking questions and seeing how the interviewees react. We are not looking to interfere with operations, but now I understand how we can intervene by simply being there.
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