Kurt Lewin's Leadership Studies and His Legacy to Social Psychology: Is There Nothing as Practical as a Good Theory?

Abstract

This paper re-examines Kurt Lewin's classic leadership studies, using them as a concrete example to explore his wider legacy to social psychology. Lewin distinguished between advanced “Galileian” science, which was based on analysing particular examples, and backward “Aristotelian” science, which used statistical analyses. Close examination of the way Lewin wrote about the leadership studies reveals that he used the sort of binary, value-laden concepts that he criticised as “Aristotelian”. Such concepts, especially those of “democracy” and “autocracy”, affected the way that he analysed the results and the ways that later social scientists have understood, and misunderstood, the studies. It is argued that Lewin's famous motto—“there is nothing as practical as a good theory”—is too simple to fit the tensions between the leadership studies and his own views of what counts as good theory.

Full text

Kurt Lewin's Leadership Studies and His Legacy to Social Psychology: Is There Nothing as
Practical as a Good Theory?
Michael Billig
Department of Social Sciences
Loughborough University
Abstract
This paper re-examines Kurt Lewin’s classic leadership studies, using them as a concrete
example to explore his wider legacy to social psychology. Lewin distinguished between
advanced ‘Galileian’ science, which was based on analysing particular examples, and
backward ‘Aristotelian’ science, which used statistical analyses. Close examination of the
way Lewin wrote about the leadership studies reveals that he used the sort of binary, value-
laden concepts that he criticised as ‘Aristotelian’. Such concepts, especially those of
‘democracy’ and ‘autocracy’, affected the way that he analysed the results and the ways that
later social scientists have understood, and misunderstood, the studies. It is argued that
Lewin’s famous motto – ‘there is nothing as practical as a good theory’ – is too simple to fit
the tensions between the leadership studies and his own views of what counts as good theory.
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Key words: Kurt Lewin; leadership studies; democratic leadership; autocratic leadership;
Aristotelian science; good theoryKurt Lewin is often depicted as a mythic figure in the
history of social psychology: the textbooks typically describe him as the founding father of
experimental social psychology, a genius whose life was tragically cut short. Like many
mythic figures, Lewin symbolically seems to unite contradictory elements. The famous
saying which is attributed to him - ‘there is nothing as practical as a good theory’ - appears to
unite theory and practice within the orbit of experimental methodology. It is as if Lewin had
demonstrated the essential harmony between these three elements. Rather than taking the
myth of harmony between theory and practice at face value, the present study examines
tensions and contradictions within Lewin’s work, as well as tensions between his work and
the later mythology. It does so by re-examining Lewin’s classic study on leadership, which
has been described as the most widely cited study in the history of leadership research and
‘the benchmark’ study of its time (Ledlow and Coppola, 2011, p. 62).
The initial leadership study was conducted in 1938 at Iowa University by Ronald
Lippitt, a graduate student supervised by Kurt Lewin. Two groups of eleven year-old
children, mainly boys, participated after school in mask-making groups, meeting over a
number of weeks. With one group, Lippitt acted as a ‘democratic’ leader while with the other
he acted as an ‘authoritarian’ leader. There were trained observers noting how the children
behaved in the various group sessions. Lewin and Lippitt (1938) reported the initial results
and Lippitt (1940) wrote up the findings in detail. Ralph White joined Lippitt to run the
second experiment also under Lewin’s direction. They used the same basic procedure but in a
more complex design. This time, there were four groups (all boys) and four different leaders,
as well as a third leadership style – the laissez-faire style. Each group experienced more than
one leader and more than one leadership style. Lewin, Lippitt and White (1999/1939)
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combined the results from the two experiments. The combined results were also reported by
Lippitt and White (1958), while White and Lippitt (1960) in their book Autocracy and
Democracy discussed in greater detail and with less formality the conduct, history and
findings of both experiments. Lewin frequently referred to the results of the studies in his
technical writings (e.g., Lewin, 1946/1997 and 1947/1997) and in his writings addressed to
non-specialists (Lewin, 1948, chapters three and five).
In discussing how the leadership studies relate to Lewin’s wider ideas, there will be a
number of interlocking themes. First, it is hoped to show that the leadership studies are often,
but not always, misrepresented. Many textbooks depict the studies as demonstrating that
children in autocratic groups were more aggressive than those with democratic leaders. As
will be argued, this over-simplifies the findings. Second, the present paper examines how
Lewin and his team used key concepts when discussing the procedures and results of their
studies. In one respect, this reflects the general need to study the use of rhetoric in social
psychology and other social scientific disciplines (Billig, 2011 and 2013). There is a specific
reason for looking closely at Lewin’s use of language, for he argued that good theories used
particular sorts of concepts. In the leadership studies, however, Lewin tended to use concepts
that reflected his ideological commitments rather than the type of concepts that he associated
with good theories.
A third theme will concern the relations between Lewin’s ideas about experimental
methods and the methods that he and his researchers used in the leadership studies. Kurt
Danziger (1994) has written that later social psychologists, especially in the USA, tended to
ignore Lewin’s views on methodology with the result that Lewin’s methodological legacy has
remained ‘something of a buried treasure’ (p. 178). We shall examine how Lewin’s
methodological views stand in contrast to the sort of experimental social psychology that he
supposedly fathered. In discussing these themes, some of the findings of the original
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leadership studies will be re-interpreted, as we re-examine Lewin’s work and his legacy in
relation to a particular, concrete example – a procedure which, as we will see, Lewin
advocated.
Aristotelian and Galileian Science
If Lewin believed that a good theory was inherently practical, then throughout his career he
sought to distinguish what marked good psychological theory from second-rate theory. As a
student he had attended Ernst Cassirer’s philosophy lectures and the influence of Cassirer was
never to leave him (Marrow, 1969). At the heart of Lewin’s thinking about science was
Cassirer’s distinction between out-dated Aristotelian science and advanced Galileian science
(Lewin, 1931/1999, 1947/1997 and 1949/1999; see Ash, 1998). Lewin believed that the
psychology of his time was, in the main, stuck in the Aristotelian stage. It may surprise many
social psychologists today to discover that the characteristics, which Lewin identified as
typifying backward Aristotelian psychology, are those which predominate in modern
experimental social psychology.
Lewin claimed that Aristotelian science was probabilistic and was based on statistical
generalities rather than on exact laws. In fact, Lewin decried the use of statistics in
psychology. He argued that psychologists and other social scientists should study in detail
‘concrete, individual cases’ from which general laws could be derived (1938a, p. 285). In an
article written jointly with his long-term friend, the notable Marxist theorist Karl Korsch,
Lewin argued that the prerequisite for the new sort of scientific psychological and
sociological investigation was that ‘the individual event’ needed to be considered ‘in its
particular setting’ (Lewin and Korsch, 1939, p. 401). Regarding psychological experiments,
this meant abandoning the usual procedure of collecting numerous instances of experimental
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conditions and then statistically comparing the mean scores of the subjects in the different
conditions. Lewin (1938a) argued that if one seriously seeks to understand the concrete
individual case, then ‘the results of individual experiments cannot be submitted to statistical
treatment where the assumption prevails that preceding and succeeding trials are identical in
kind’; instead, ‘each trial must be treated as a separate, concrete event, i.e. in an essentially
non-statistical way’ (p. 284, emphasis in original).
Good theory, then, was not to be based on the statistically analysed results from
experimental samples, but on the detailed study of particular instances. It was, in Lewin’s
view, important to understand the underlying forces behind outward behaviour. These forces
should be expressed in mathematical terms and, in consequence, psychologists should use
mathematics to express qualitative, not quantitative, differences (1944/1997). Lewin believed
that field theory succeeded in formulating topological formulae to represent the forces in a
person’s situation, or life space, which led them to behave as they did (Lewin, 1936 and
1938b). The methodological implication was clear: an experiment, involving the detailed
study of a single concrete case, was more valuable than one permitting large amounts of data
to be gathered from quickly and superficially studied participants.
Lewin argued that Galileian and Aristotelian sciences not only used different methods
but they used different concepts. In Lewin’s view, Aristotelian concepts were marked by two
characteristics: they had a ‘valuative character’ and were binary (1931/1999, p. 38). Lewin
suggested that most of the concepts, which psychologists used, were ‘anthropomorphic’ in
that they expressed values; for instance, clinical psychologists used value-laden concepts to
differentiate between ‘normal’ and ‘pathological’ behaviour (pp. 38-9). Concepts such as
‘normal’ and ‘pathological’ were binary since they represented ‘paired opposites’, whereas
Galilean concepts expressed ‘continuous gradations’ (p. 39). By using neutral, non-binary
concepts such as ‘forces’ and ‘vectors’, Lewin believed that field theory represented an
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advance over ordinary value judgement. Generally, Lewin disparaged psychologists for using
everyday language, whose concepts tended to be binary and value-laden. If psychologists
were to use ordinary language concepts, then they needed to redefine them in order to use
them in specialist, technical ways (1944/1997, p. 192).
This contrast between ‘good’ Galileian and ‘bad’ Aristotelian concepts leads to a
problem between the demands of creating good theory and the demands of being practical. To
be good theorists, in Lewin’s view, psychologists needed to write in technical ways, using
concepts that non-specialists would have difficulty grasping. However, to be practically
useful, psychologists must be able to communicate with non-specialist audiences. Throughout
his career Lewin sought to communicate with wider audiences, right from his early article on
applied psychology published in Korsch’s Marxist journal Praktischer Sozialismus (Practical
Socialism) to his final writings addressed to educational and Jewish community leaders
(Lewin, 1921/1999 and 1948, especially Part III; see also John, Eckardt and Hiebsch, 1989).
The leadership studies were caught within this continuing dilemma between good and
practical science.
Using Aristotelian concepts in the leadership studies: the independent variables
The leadership studies were framed by ordinary language terms, with the main independent
variables being labelled by two concepts that were binary opposites and value-laden:
‘democracy’ and ‘autocracy’. Inevitably, these terms express political values. Lewin was, of
course, a refugee from an anti-democratic, autocratic regime and his writings about social
conflict reflected his deep concern with the dangers of fascism and the need to establish
firmly the principles of democracy (Lewin, 1948). He argued that the leadership studies
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carried wider social messages about the nature of political culture and leadership (Lewin,
1948, chapters three and five).
In the reports written by Lewin and his team, there is a slippage of terms: the
researchers used ‘democracy’, ‘democratic atmosphere’ and ‘democratic style of leadership’
interchangeably, as they did ‘authoritarian’, ‘autocratic’ and ‘autocracy’. Whatever terms
were used, they rested on the value-laden contrast between autocracy/authoritarianism and
democracy. In second experiment, the concept of ‘laissez-faire’ was introduced but, as we
shall see, this concept was used to preserve, rather than threaten, the ideological values of the
study.
White and Lippitt (1960) wrote that early in their discussions of the leadership roles,
they found themselves using ordinary language terms to describe these roles. Rather than
calling them ‘role one’, ‘role two’ and ‘role three’, as might have seemed scientifically
correct, it ‘seemed natural and appropriate to us’ to give them the names ‘autocratic’,
‘democratic’ and ‘laissez-faire’ (p. 10). The comment is interesting. It shows the extent to
which the researchers took their everyday understandings and values into the research
programme, rather than deriving their key concepts from psychological theories. It also
indicates the ideological nature of their everyday assumptions. Some researchers claim that
‘ideology’ represents the processes by which people come to accept their social world as
being ‘natural’. If the researchers considered it ‘natural’ to use political terms as ‘autocratic’
and ‘democratic’ (and we will see that ‘laissez-faire’ has a different history within the
research project), then we can see that the researchers, in acting as researchers, were
themselves engaged in ideological actions.
Lewin and Korsch (1939) stressed that when social psychologists seek to study group
processes, they must take account of ‘the existing “ideologies” of the groups concerned’ (p.
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401). The group leaders were in what Lewin (1938b) termed an ‘overlapping situation’. They
were simultaneously part of the life of the groups by virtue of their roles as leaders, and
simultaneously they were acting as researchers, belonging to the group of researchers. Lewin
and Korsch’s dictum should require them to be self-analytical about their own existing
ideologies and about the possible effects of those ideologies on their behaviour as both group
leaders and researchers. This would mean critically examining their use of terminology such
as ‘democracy’ and ‘autocracy’.
Instead, the researchers showed a tendency to take it for granted – or treat it as
‘natural’ - that the phenomena which they were studying should be called ‘democracy’ and
‘autocracy’. The way that the researchers operationalised these concepts has been criticised
and it is not intended here to detail these criticisms here (see Gastil, 1994). The researchers
used understandable guidelines. For instance, in autocratic groups the leader ‘usually dictated
the particular work task and work companions of each member’ while in democratic groups
‘the members were free to work with whomever they chose and the division of tasks was left
up to the group’; in autocratic groups ‘all determination of policy’ was by the leader, while in
the democratic groups all policies were ‘a matter of group discussion and decision’ (Lewin et
al, 1939/1999, p. 229).
In practice matters were not quite so clear-cut. The policy to have a leader and to
make masks was not decided democratically, nor was the actual leader chosen by the group
members. The leaders in the democratic groups would typically decide which matters were
for discussion and group decision and which were not. If this was a ‘democracy’, it was a
very limited democracy, for power firmly resided in the hands of the adult leaders. Indeed,
many school teachers nowadays involve children in classroom discussions, rather than
issuing outright commends, but that does not mean that their classrooms should properly be
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called ‘democracies’ for the teachers retain subtle ways of exercising power (Edwards and
Mercer, 1987).
Above all, the leaders were responsible for running the experiment. They had to
ensure that they created recognizably ‘democratic’ and ‘authoritarian’ conditions. This led to
a paradox because democratic leaders were sometimes more controlling than authoritarian
leaders, because they sometimes sought to control what they considered to be undemocratic
behaviour. In one episode the leader is trying to ensure open discussion but one of the boys is
struggling to be heard. The leader, using the ‘democratic style’ of command, in which ‘we’ is
used to indicate ‘you’, says: ‘We ought to listen to what Hamil has to say and take our turns’
(White and Lippitt, 1960, p. 102). In this way, the leader is telling the children how to
behave.
On the other hand, the autocratic leaders could not be too autocratic, because, in order
to be successful experimenters, they had to permit the children to behave freely. Autocratic
leaders might issue orders, but they could not insist upon those orders being obeyed, without
the risk of affecting the experimental results. Given that ‘autocracy’ was the ‘bad’
independent variable, as contrasted with the ‘good’ variable of democracy, it was in the
interests of the experimenters to let the participants behave badly in the autocratic groups.
Lippitt (1940) reports on the children yelling hysterically and ignoring the autocratic leader,
who displays ‘exaggerated patience’ and merely stares at the offenders without saying
anything (p. 86). Moreover, the autocratic leaders possessed no punitive powers. Unlike even
the mildest of teachers, these autocrats could not discipline the children. At most they could
have excluded recalcitrant children from the group, but this would have threatened the
experimental design. In short, they were autocrats without autocratic powers.
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The researchers in their various reports reproduce some of the observers’ notes but
they do not analyse particular episodes, or interactions, in any concrete detail. A modern
discursive psychologist, fulfilling Lewin’s demand to analyse concrete particulars, would pay
close attention to particular episodes, analysing how the participants interacted and used
language. In doing this, the discursive psychologist would be taking a critical stance towards
the terms ‘autocratic’ and ‘democratic’. Instead of accepting these terms at face value, the
analyst would be examining how in practice an autocratic leader or democratic leader
actually spoke, behaved and exercised powers of leadership.
Lewin advocated a critical stance: we should treat scientists, he suggested, in the same
way as we treat government – with ‘a great deal of distrust and an eternal vigilance against an
overextension of power’ (1943/1999, p. 336). However, when scientists use ideologically
loaded terms, it can be difficult to maintain a critical approach, especially a self-critical one.
Lewin (1943/1999) suggested that psychologists, when trying to understand utterances,
should look beyond their grammatical form. If a teacher or nazi said ‘Would you close the
door?’ they are likely to be uttering a command, rather than asking a question. In trying to be
‘objective’, the psychologist often failed to classify such an utterance correctly, treating it as a
question rather recognizing its ‘social meaning’ as an order (p. 340).
It is arguable whether the researchers in the leadership study followed this critical
stance fully. Lippitt (1940) and White and Lippitt (1960) gave examples of democratic
leaders supposedly opening up decisions for democratic discussion rather than giving orders.
Many of the examples were of the type: ‘“Would you like me to give you a little idea of how
they generally make masks?” (All nod)’ (Lippitt, 1940 p. 77); or ‘Don’t you think it would be
a good idea if we tackled one at a time?’ (p. 111).
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These sorts of directed questions resemble those which Edwards and Mercer (1987)
identified as being used by liberal teachers as a means of exercising control without explicitly
giving orders. Such questions contain what conversation analysts have called a ‘preference
structure’ for agreement (Pomerantz, 1984; Lerner, 1996). The leader, in effect, is inviting the
children to agree – to ‘nod’ is easy but to disagree is more complicated and potentially
awkward. Disagreeing would put the child in a position where they would have to justify
their disagreement and would open them to criticism from the adult leader. The researchers,
however, did not record these sorts of ‘questions’ as means by which leaders can exert social
control. Of course, Lewin should not be criticised for failing to anticipate later investigations
into conversational meaning, but he can be criticised for being partial in his critique. He
warned against taking authoritarian autocrats at their grammatical word, but seemed prepared
to accept the word of ‘democratic’ authorities. It was as if the category ‘democratic’ conferred
a free pass.
Using Aristotelian terminology: the origins of ‘laissez-faire’
Anyone reading the report of the second experiment in Lewin et al (1939/1999) would get the
impression that the researchers intended from the outset to have an extra condition - laissez-
faire leadership. The authors followed the convention of report-writing by using the passive
voice when describing the procedures of the second experiment: ‘Four new clubs of 10-year-
old boys were organized...the variety of clubs was extended...To the variable of authoritarian
and democratic procedures was added a third, “laissez-faire”’ (p. 227, italics in original; see
Biber and Conrad, 2009; Billig, 2011 and 2013; Billig and Marinho, in press, for discussions
of the use of the passive voice in methods sections). The phrasing conveys that the order of
events followed the structure of the research report: the idea for the design preceded the
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running of the experiment, which preceded the collection of data, which preceded the
analysis (Swales, 2006). But this was not so.
We are fortunate to have three further accounts which provide more information about
the second experiment and its history: the book by White and Lippitt (1960), Miriam Lewin’s
memoir of her father (M. Lewin 1998) and Marrow’s (1969) biography of Lewin. Apparently
the experimenters had initially decided that the second study, like the first, would compare
democratic and authoritarian styles of leadership. They soon became aware that the children
in White’s democratic group, named the ‘Charlie Chan Group’, were not behaving as
expected: the atmosphere of the group ‘had become so anarchic, and the leader so generally
ignored’ that the group was not functioning as ‘a well-integrated democracy’ (White and
Lippitt, 1960, p. 110).
The group seemed to have more than its fair share of boys, whose behaviour Lippitt
and White found problematic. According to the researchers, the group contained ‘three
outstanding trouble makers’, including one boy who was ‘more definitely a disciplinary
problem’ than any of the other boys in the whole study (White and Lippitt, 1960, p. 107). The
problem was not that these boys were anti-democratic but in one sense they were too
democratic. These difficult boys did not treat adults with respect but treated them ‘as equals’
showing ‘indifference to adult-sponsored values’ (Lippitt and White, 1958, p. 509). White
and Lippitt (1960) gave an example of the most problematic boy, ‘Reilly’, interrupting and
contradicting the leader, ‘talking to him as a peer’ (p. 107).
Lippitt and White did not appreciate being treated in this way. Their dislike is clear,
especially their dislike of ‘Reilly’ (Lippitt and White, 1958, pp. 508f; White and Lippitt,
1960, pp. 175f). During the period of autocratic rule, Reilly led an outright rebellion,
mobilizing the other boys into a strike. The researchers did not go into details about the
12

episode, which, if successful, would have threatened the design of the experiment but would
have provided a concrete example of how autocracy could be resisted. Lippitt and White
(1958) dismissed Reilly’s capabilities as a leader, claiming ‘he was not actually a leader in
the sense that he showed any planning or organizing ability’; he was only a leader in that his
‘headlong, self-centred activity was imitated by others in the group’ and he was successful in
getting ‘gullible’ boys to accept him ‘at his own valuation’ (pp. 508-9). Lewin et al
(1939/1999) report that the rebellion failed when the boys’ courage ‘seemed to wane’ (p.
241). In all such comments, the ideology of the researchers is clear: they were not favouring
rebellion against autocracy, and disapproved of the boys treating the adult leaders with too
much equality. When this occurred, the researchers considered that democracy was
threatened. According to White and Lippitt (1960), the two most disrespectful boys of the
Charlie Chan group ‘made democracy harder to achieve’ and were ‘a net liability from the
standpoint of democracy’ (p. 174).
Lippitt and White feared that the behaviour of this group in the democratic condition
was threatening the success of the experiment, because the boys were behaving
inappropriately: democracy did not seem to be emerging well in this group. Apparently
Lewin saved the day. He suggested that White had been allowing the boys too much freedom
and that his leadership should not be called ‘democratic’ but ‘laissez-faire’. The team decided
to build White’s style into the experimental design by running further laissez-faire groups.
This story of looming disaster and rescue by the ‘laissez-faire’ label does not appear
in the journal reports. Nor did Lewin mention the story in his various summaries of the
second experiment (e.g., Lewin, 1948, chapters three and five). The ‘official’ version has
become part of disciplinary folklore, with the textbooks presenting the laissez-faire condition
as if it had been planned in advance (e.g., Hergenhahn and Henley, 2013, p. 459; Nelson and
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Quick, 2011, p. 434). Whatever the methodological proprieties of such relabeling, we can ask
about the rhetorical consequences of creating a new condition in this way.
Basically, Lewin’s rhetorical switch served to protect the reputation of ‘democracy’.
Bad results accruing to ‘democracy’ would have created an ideological problem for the study.
Lewin’s solution was Aristotelian, not Galileian, for he did not treat ‘democratic leadership’
as if were a continuous, rather than a binary, concept. For example, he might have classified
White’s style of ‘democratic leadership’ as being at the far end of a democratic continuum
with a more interventionist style at the other end. To have seen ‘democracy’ in this Galileian
way would have meant classifying the problematic behaviour of the Charlie Chan group as
being produced by an extreme form of ‘democratic leadership’. The problem is avoided by
treating ‘democracy’ as a binary concept, so that White’s style ceases to be an instance of
democratic leadership. Thus, Lewin protected the concept of ‘democracy’ rhetorically,
attributing the ‘bad’ results to a form of non-democratic leadership.
Ensuring the results make a good story
The researchers performed a further act of rhetorical labelling to ensure that unfavourable
results could be transformed into favourable ones. In the mythology of the experiment, it is
commonly asserted that the study demonstrated that autocratic groups were more aggressive
than democratic ones. Statements to this effect can be found in social psychology textbooks,
histories of psychology, organizational books and research reports: ‘in contrast to children in
democratic groups, those in authoritarian groups expressed 30 times as much hostility’
(Barone, Madddux and Snyder, 1997, p. 33); ‘with the ‘autocratic’ leaders there was more
aggression’ (Brown, 2000, p. 94); ‘the authoritarian group was highly aggressive’
(Hergenhahn and Henley, 2013, p.459); the researchers noted ‘high rates of hostility in the
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autocratically led groups’ (Forsyth, 2009, p. 43); ‘the studies revealed that there was more
aggression (about 30 times more) and more scapegoating in authoritarian led groups’
(Macgowan and Wagner, 2005, p. 84).
Such comments also imply that the measures of aggression were computed and
compared across conditions. This is not a matter of later social psychologists interpreting
Galileian, non-averaged data in a conventional Aristotelian style. Lewin et al (1939/1999)
presented a table showing the average number of aggressive actions per meeting in the
different leadership conditions (p. 237). Actually, they do not present a single score for
‘autocracy’ but they give two autocratic scores. Had they offered a single score, the average
would have been 7.5, which would have been by far the lowest level of aggression for any of
the three conditions: the average for laissez-faire was 38 and for democracy 20. Instead, the
authors divided the autocracy condition into the two most aggressive autocracy groups
(whose average was 30) and the four least aggressive autocracy groups (average 2).
Having divided the autocratic groups into two categories, the authors then needed to
label these categories. Unsurprisingly they called the first group ‘aggressive autocracies’ or
‘Autocracy (aggressive reaction)’. What they called the second group is revealing. Given that
the groups were being split on the basis of their aggressiveness and given that no other groups
in the whole experiment had lower average aggression levels than the four least aggressive
autocratic groups, one might have expected that the other groups would be called ‘non-
aggressive autocracies’ or even ‘peaceful autocracies’. However, that would have linked
autocracy with a positively valued characteristic (non-aggressiveness). Instead, they chose a
negatively valued label. The non-aggressive autocratic groups were ‘apathetic’: they were
classified as ‘apathetic autocracies’ and ‘Autocracy (apathetic reaction)’.
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Using the word ‘apathetic’ solves the ideological problem of appearing to credit
autocracy with a beneficial quality, while preserving the link between autocracy and the
aggressive reaction. It was as if the non-aggressive autocratic groups were only non-
aggressive because they were too apathetic to be aggressive. However, the so-called
‘apathetic’ groups behaved in ways that make the description curious. When justifying their
use of ‘apathetic’, Lewin et al (1939/1999) claimed that these autocratic groups ‘dull’ and
‘lifeless’ with little joking or smiling (p. 238). However, Lippitt and White (1958) reported
that the democratic and the apathetic groups produced the highest rates of ‘work-minded
conversation’ (p. 502). They wrote that it was ‘interesting to find nearly as high a level of
interpersonal friendliness in the authoritarian situations as in the democratic and laissez-faire
situations’ (p. 504).
White and Lippitt (1960) noted that many of the boys accepted autocratic leadership,
seeing it as a necessary way of getting the job done; in these circumstances ‘the evidence of
discontent among the boys was at a minimum’ (p. 33) and accepting autocratic leadership
could be combined with ‘productive group discussion’ (p. 34). This is confirmed in the
observers’ notes of a group supposedly showing a ‘submissive attitude to autocracy’. The
observer recorded: ‘the free, sociable, joking atmosphere disappears almost completely as
hard work begins’ and, when working hard, the boys were asking plenty of work-related
questions (White and Lippitt, 1960, pp. 51-2; see also pp. 92f).
The term ‘apathetic’ may solve the ideological problem but it does less than justice to
the complexity of the children’s behaviour. Perhaps it underestimates the extent to which
accepting orders from adult authorities appeared ideologically ‘natural’ to these
schoolchildren. On the other hand, rhetorical simplicity is useful for creating mythology.
Whereas some textbooks only mention the aggressive reactions of autocratic groups, others
do say that autocratic groups were either aggressive or apathetic. Sometimes the apathy is
16

exaggerated: Schulz-Hardt and Brodbeck (2008) write that in the apathetic groups there were
‘no instances of smiling or joking’ (p 285), thereby upgrading Lewin et al’s already
exaggerated ‘little smiling (and) joking’ (1939/1999, p. 238). One textbook even omits the
aggressive groups entirely: ‘When led in an autocratic style, the boys were lethargic and
docile’ (Kardas, 2013, p. 356). When it comes to making a point, which will have affect
others’ judgements and disciplinary orthodoxy, there may be few things as practical as a clear
moral story.
The Aristotelian legacy of the leadership studies
We have seen briefly how textbooks have simplified the findings of the leadership studies.
However, this is not uncommon in social psychology; there are other examples of researchers
and textbook writers over-simplifying or exaggerating the research which they cite (see
critiques by Berkowitz, 1971; Billig, 2013; Cherry, 1995; Katzko, 2006). Besides just being
over-simplified, the leadership studies tend to be simplified into a moral fable, in which
democracy is shown to be ‘good’ and autocracy ‘bad’. It does not matter whether the levels of
aggression are reported as being high or low under autocracy, the results are morally similar
in that autocracy is found wanting. To use Lewin’s terminology, these scientific stories are
told in Aristotelian, not Galileian, terms.
Not all authors over-simplify the results to the point of distortion. Some mention the
‘bad’ results of the democratic groups and the ‘good’ ones of the autocratic groups. The
wording tends to be rhetorically interesting and, indeed, makes the ideological preferences all
the more clear. When discussing the autocratic groups, the good points are typically
mentioned first, followed by ‘but’ (not ‘and’) or the writers will start with an ‘although’
clause. Forsyth and Burnette (2005) comment that autocratic groups worked longer than
17

democratic groups, ‘but hostility and aggression’ were highest (p. 9). When Forsyth (2009)
describes the study, he uses the ‘although’ format: ‘Although these results argued in terms of
the efficiency of an autocratic leadership style, the observers also noted that when the leader
left the room for any length of time, the democratically led groups kept on working, whereas
the boys in the autocratic groups stopped working’ (pp. 42-3).
In these cases, and many others, the order of the propositions in the ‘but’ and
‘although’ statements could have been reversed – the writer could have said that ‘although the
autocratic groups stopped working when the leader left the room, they had the more efficient
rates of productivity’. Empirically both orders are permissible: scientific considerations, as
opposed to ideological ones, do not preclude connecting the points with ‘and’, rather than
‘but’ or ‘although’. However, the ‘good’ point of the autocratic group typically comes first, in
order to be qualified, or discounted, by the ‘bad’ point in the second part of the sentence. In
terms of the overall story, the bad news that autocracy has good points must precede the good
news that it has bad points, so that writers can overwhelm the former with the latter and give
their sentences a happy ending. In this way, the little words ‘but’ and ‘although’ unobtrusively
carry important ideological messages.
The textbook summaries also show an absence of technical terminology, using
ordinary language to convey what happened in the leadership studies. Some of the original
reports contained field theory diagrams and formulae (Lewin et al, 1939/1999; Lippitt, 1940).
These tended to be placed after the main findings had been presented, as if the authors were
moving textually from Aristotelian to Galilean science. When Lewin summarised the findings
in writings aimed at a non-technical audience, he would use the findings to tell a moral tale
without technical terminology or topological diagrams. For instance, he suggested that
Lippitt’s studies ‘showed the beneficial effects which the democratic atmosphere has on the
overt character of the member’ (Lewin, 1944, p.196). Regarding the results from the second
18

experiment, Lewin commented that the differences between democracy and laissez-faire
‘were very much in favour of democracy’ (1948, p. 81). Here Lewin assumes that the
dependent variables of the study assess moral qualities.
Lewin’s language was different when he summarised and discussed the findings in
more technical writings, using topological representations of forces and spaces to describe
what had happened (e.g., Lewin, 1946/1997 and 1947/1997). It was as if he were translating
from ordinary language into a specialist language with the translation adding little, if
anything, conceptually original. Indeed, it is possible to detect the extent to which the
topological representations were influenced by the ideological and moral assumptions of the
more ordinary or Aristotelian interpretations.
Lewin (1947/1997) discussed a problem which Lewin et al (1939/1999) skirted
around: why should some autocratic groups produce such low levels of aggression and what
distinguished them from the highly aggressive groups? Lewin answered the question by using
complex topogological formulae, representing the various forces in the situation. He
suggested that the low outward aggression in ‘apathetic autocracy’ did not indicate less
aggression as a force in those groups. Instead in these groups there was greater autocratic
control against outwardly displaying that aggression. Lewin expressed the point technically:
‘We are inclined to assume that the autocratic leadership form implies an additional force
(fGr,c) which corresponds to the higher degree of authoritarian control and which in these
situations has the direction against open aggression’ (1947/1997, p. 316).
Two points can be noted. The first is that the topological explanation exemplifies the
sort of psychological explanation which Gigerenzer (2010) criticizes as tautological. Lewin
explains the absence of outward aggression in terms of an underlying force directed against
outward aggression. How do we know there is such a force in apathetic autocracies? Because
19

there is little outward aggression. The second point is that the explanation depends on the
assumption that autocratic leadership implies a high degree of authoritarian control. One
might say that this is a reasonable assumption in general. Certainly it reflected the extreme
political autocracy from which Lewin had fortuitously escaped. However, this assumption
scarcely reflected the reality of the autocracies in the leadership experiments. As has been
mentioned, the authoritarian leaders possessed no punitive means to control the behaviour of
the group members; and, in any case, any such control would have vitiated the validity of the
experiment as an experiment.
It is as if the ideological meaning of the concept ‘autocracy’ determines the
interpretation of the experimental situation. Lewin (1947/1997) presented a formula to
express the relationship between authoritarian control and outward aggression: m + n (fPAGr,c)
= p > (m + n)). Although exemplifying Lewin’s Galileian ambitions, the formula is
essentially empty. Its basic meaning stems from the ordinary language, everyday meanings
and ideological assumptions that create the situation which is to be formalised. In fact, the
very formalization helps to protect those assumptions, since they become less visible and,
thereby, less open to criticism. However, the formalizations can be pealed off, like an
adhesive sticker on a parcel, without disturbing the contents of the parcel below. Recently,
Burnes and Cooke (2013) have argued that Lewin’s field theory could be profitably revived
but without the topology and hodology (see also the classic evaluation of field theory by
Deutsch, 1954). For Lewin, this would have been tantamount to abandoning the ideal of good
theory and settling for the second rate. The problem is that the so-called good theory adds far
less than it promises and can be less, not more, meaningful than ordinary descriptions.
Conclusions
20

The preceding discussion points in a number of directions. The leadership studies bear out
Lewin’s preference for a different sort of method than has become orthodox within social
psychology. This suggests that Lewin’s legacy to social psychology may be more complicated
than is conventionally assumed. Critical social psychologists might benefit from seriously
discussing Lewin’s work in order to explore points of similarity and difference. Certainly,
discursive psychologists, who seek to discover general laws of social organization by
qualitatively examining particular social interactions, may find that Lewin was not the sort of
intellectual opponent that they might have assumed. Moreover, critical psychologists,
favouring radical analyses, might note that Lewin and Korsch (1939) included historical
materialism amongst the types of concrete, qualitative analyses which they advocated (on the
relations between Lewin and Korsch, see van Elteren, 1992; John et al, 1989). Certainly,
critical psychologists have scarcely begun to take seriously those aspects of Lewin’s work
which the textbooks of social psychology routinely overlook.
Another conclusion is that the leadership studies failed to live up to Lewin’s own
ideals of a Galileian science. The experimental situation, its results and interpretations were
framed within binary, value-laden, ordinary concepts. It could not be otherwise once the
researchers had decided to compare ‘democracy’ with ‘autocracy’. The influence of those
value-laden, highly ideological terms permeated all levels of the study, even when Lewin was
using the supposedly neutral topological terms of field theory.
It would not be difficult to argue that the contradiction between Lewin’s ideal of good
theory and his experimental practice stems from the former, rather than the latter, because his
conception of Galileian science set unrealistically demanding criteria for psychological
sciences. Lewin’s contemporary, the Polish physician and microbiologist Ludwik Fleck,
provided a much more realistic view of science. Drawing on his experience as a laboratory
scientist, Fleck noted that medical science is not comprised of ‘pure’ scientific concepts, but
21

that it necessarily includes value-laden concepts such as ‘disease’, ‘pathology’ and ‘illness’
(Fleck, 1927/1986; Fleck, 1935/1979). Accordingly, there should be no reason why
psychologists should try to eliminate so-called Aristotelian concepts from their thinking.
Certainly, Fleck’s view of science is closer to modern sociological thinking about science
than is Lewin’s adaptation of Cassirer’s philosophy (Cohen and Schnelle, 1986; Löwy, 1988
and 2000).
There is no evidence that Lewin was aware of Fleck’s work or, had he known of it, he
would have been influenced by it. Instead of speculating about Lewin’s reactions to a very
different image of science, we are left with a contradiction: the promise of harmony that his
motto holds out was not exemplified in his own work. In fact, the not so good sort of theory
proved to be more practical: Lewin used value-laden, ideological terms when addressing
practitioners. Lewin has had a profound effect on the history of social and organizational
psychology, but the textbooks, when citing his work, avoid the neutral technical formulae,
which he spent so much care formulating, and instead they use ordinary, moral language.
Perhaps, this suggests a story of over-ambitious ideas coming down to earth in failure.
Yet an alternative interpretation is possible. Maybe the motto provides a vision of what might
be possible in a society which has politically and economically resolved contradictions
between theory and practice. The concrete example of Lewin’s studies, and of his own life,
shows that he lived in a contradictory society, where the idea of ‘democracy’ was not
straightforward but where there were, to quote Lewin, deep ‘paradoxes of democracy’
(Lewin, 1948, p. 50). No-one who had seen Hitler democratically voted to power could be
naive about the practical fragility and imperfections of democratic ideals in modern society.
When there is a disjunction between a society’s theory and practice – between its
values and economic realities – then good theory may not be practical. Or at least, the famous
22

motto might only work in theory, offering a theoretical cover for underlying contradictions
(see Weik, 2003). When Lewin first wrote about his motto, he did not claim to be its author:
‘A businessman once stated that “there is nothing as practical as a good theory”’ (Lewin,
1943/1999, p. 336). But, would a businessperson necessarily have the same view as a social
critic about what constitutes a good theory; and would they agree upon the sorts of idea that
they wish to see put into practice?
We can see from the practical example of Lewin’s studies that not so good
(Aristotelian) theory was more practical than good (Galileian) theory. This apparent failure
may be more emblematic of current ideology and social conditions than any spurious success.
In fact, Lewin, by pursuing the idea of rational theory so rigorously, might have exposed its
limitations. In so doing, he produced a telling message for our times, when entrepreneurs are
constantly marketing ‘good’ theories about leadership, business practices and organizational
dynamics. Theories have become commercially valuable commodities, as the line between
academia and business is no longer as clear as it might formerly have been imagined to be.
Academics are urged by their employers to become entrepreneurial profit-makers and, in
return, they promote their theories (Billig, 2013; Slaughter and Rhoades, 2004). These are not
the conditions under which an intellectually good theory will be the most practical – that is,
the most profitable - theory. What can be marketed most easily are slogans dressed as good
theories or theories reduced to brand names. Lewin’s failure to make his good theories
practical can be seen as an emblematic achievement. By his own example, Lewin constructed
the conditions for an invaluable insight: today, there is nothing as practical as a second rate
theory.
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