ABSTRACT
A survey of the theory of' life-space' The theory of the life-space - for Lewin, at least - was above all concerned with demonstrating that human behaviour is guided by the idea and the perception which the agent has of his environment. This is not to deny that personal attitudes and unconscious impulses exist; only they have to be reduced to the level of being merely certain factors among a number of others. The basic formula was B = F(P, E), where behaviour is a function (in this particular case the function also expresses a field) of the person's characteristics and of his perception of the environment. l The relationship between the environment as perceived and the real environment is as follows: reality is embodied in the life-space by means of our perception (taking this in its widest sense, including those ideas by means of which we 'approach the world'); and the life-space is continuously being corrected by the person who carries it within him, on the basis of real encounters with the 'world' (this is what we call experience).
