ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a description of Lewin's position as it applied to individual behavior. The environment in Lewin's equation is a perceptual or psychological environment. Although Lewin's devotion to research in psychology remained as firm as it had been before, spurred on by the momentous events that he had experienced, he turned his attention to social psychology, group processes, and the psychological issues associated with minority-especially Jewish-identity. Initially, Lewin, Lippitt, and White worked out careful operational definitions of two different styles of leadership: democratic and autocratic. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology agreed to sponsor this new Research Center for Group Dynamics, and so the Lewin family moved to Boston in 1945. At about the same time, Lewin founded the Commission on Community Interrelations (CCI), which was funded by the American Jewish Congress. Some of the next generation's most outstanding American social psychologists had either studied with Lewin directly or were students of his students.
