ABSTRACT
The need for field theory as a basic perspective and an integrative frame of reference in social psychology is far from dead. The basic idea of field theory was important in social psychology long before R. Lewin version, and it is important. Measurement of the gestalt of values is probably the most economical means of cognitive access to what is going on in the system as a whole at a given time. Psychological and behavioral processes tend to constitute a system, or, in alternative language, an interactive gestalt. The parts influence each other systematically and recursively in such a way that some inclusive, relatively simple and often powerful pattern of unification and polarization of elements emerges through a kind of continuing "dynamic organizing and reorganizing process." For better or for worse, families and play groups are social-interaction systems, and unavoidably they are systemically compelled to become differentiated.
