Kurt Lewin and the Origin of T-Groups

Original source (edited on this page) at http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-lewin.htm

T-Groups: Kurt Lewin and the Origins

In the summer of 1946 Kurt Lewin along with colleagues and associates from the Research Center for Group Dynamics (Ronald Lippitt, Leland Bradford and Kenneth Benne) became involved in leadership and group dynamics training for the Connecticut State Interracial Commission. They designed and implemented a two-week programme that looked to encourage group discussion and decision-making, and where participants (including staff) could treat each other as peers. ... The trainers and researchers collected detailed observations and recordings of group activities, and worked on these during the event in meetings that were initially just for the staff -- however, some of the other participants also wanted to be involved in these staff meetings.

At the start of one of the early evening observers' sessions, three of the participants asked to be present. Much to the chagrin of the staff, Lewin agreed to this unorthodox request. As the observers reported to the group, one of the participants -- a woman -- disagreed with the observer on the interpretation of her behaviour that day. One other participant agreed with her assertion and a lively discussion ensued about behaviours and their interpretations. Word of the session spread, and by the next night, more than half of the sixty participants were attending the feedback sessions which, indeed became the focus of the conference. Near the conference's end, the vast majority of participants were attending these sessions, which lasted well into the night. (NTL Institute)

Lippitt (1949) has described how Lewin responded to this and joined with participants in ‘active dialogue about differences of interpretation and observation of the events by those who had participated in them’. A significant innovation in training practice was established. As Kolb (1984: 10) has commented:

Thus the discovery was made that learning is best facilitated in an environment where there is dialectic tension and conflict between immediate, concrete experience and analytic detachment. By bringing together the immediate experiences of the trainees and the conceptual models of the staff in an open atmosphere where inputs from each perspective could challenge and stimulate the other, a learning environment occurred with remarkable vitality and creativity.

It was this experience that led to the establishment of the first National Training Laboratory in Group Development (held at Gould Academy in Bethel, Maine in the summer of 1947). By this time Lewin was dead, but his thinking and practice was very much a part of what happened. This is how Reid (1981: 153) describes what happened:

A central feature of the laboratory was “basic skills training,” in which an observer reported on group processes at set intervals. The skills to be achieved were intended to help an individual function in the role of “change agent”. A change agent was thought to be instrumental in facilitating communication and useful feedback among participants. He was also to be a paragon who was aware of the need for change, could diagnose the problems involved, and could plan for change, implement the plans, and evaluate the results. To become an effective change agent, an understanding of the dynamics of groups was believed necessary.

What we see here is the basic shape of T-group theory and the so-called ‘laboratory method’. Initially the small discussion groups were known as ‘basic skill training groups’ but by 1949 they had been shortened to T-group. In 1950 a sponsoring organization, the National Training Laboratories (NTL) was set up, and the scene was set for a major expansion of the work (reaching its heyday in the 1960s) and the evolution of the encounter group (Yalom 1995: 488).

... Four elements of the T-group are particularly noteworthy ... according to Yalom (1995: 488-9), and they owe a great deal to Lewin’s influence:

Feedback. Lewin had borrowed the term from electrical engineering and applied it to the behavioural sciences. Here it was broadly used to describe the adjustment of a process informed by information about its results or effects. An important element here is the difference between the desired and actual result. There was a concern that organizations, groups and relationships generally suffered from a lack of accurate information about what was happening around their performance. Feedback became a key ingredient of T-groups and was found to ‘be most effective when it stemmed from here-and-now observations, when it followed the generating event as closely as possible, and when the recipient checked with other group members to establish its validity and reduce perceptual distortion’ (Yalom 1995: 489).

Unfreezing. This was taken directly from Kurt Lewin’s change theory. It describes the process of disconfirming a person’s former belief system. ‘Motivation for change must be generated before change can occur. One must be helped to re-examine many cherished assumptions about oneself and one’s relations to others’ (op. cit.). Part of the process of the group, then, had to address this. Trainers sought to create an environment in which values and beliefs could be challenged.

Participant observation. ‘Members had to participate emotionally in the group as well as observe themselves and the group objectively’ (op. cit.). Connecting concrete (emotional) experience and analytical detachment is not an easy task, and is liable to be resisted by many participants, but it was seen as a essential if people were to learn and develop.

Cognitive aids. This particular aspect was drawn from developments in psychoeducational and cognitive-behavioural group therapy. It entailed the provision of models or organizing ideas through the medium brief lectures and handouts (and later things like film clips or video). Perhaps the best known of these was the Johari Window (named after, and developed by, Joe Luft and Harry Ingram). Yalom (1995: 490) comments, ‘The use of such cognitive aids, lectures, reading assignments, and theory sessions demonstrates that the basic allegiance of the T-group was to the classroom rather than the consulting room. The participants were considered students; the task of the T-group was to facilitate learning for its members’.

(This article is from infed.org -- see: http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-lewin.htm)


Further reading and references

Bogdan, R. C. and Biklen, S. K. (1992) Qualitative Research for Education, Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Bradford, L. P., Gibb, J. R., Benn, K. D. (1964). T Group theory and laboratory method, New York: John Wiley.

Brown, R. (1988) Group Processes. Dynamics within and between groups, Oxford: Blackwell.

Carr, W. and Kemmis, S. (1986) Becoming Critical. Education, knowledge and action research, Lewes: Falmer Press.

Correy, S. M. (1949) ‘Action research, fundamental research and educational practices’, Teachers College Record 50: 509-14.

Deutch, M. (1949) ‘A theory of cooperation and competition’, Human Relations 2: 129-52

Elliott, J. (1991) Action Research for Educational Change, Buckingham: Open University Press.

Gastil, J. (1994) ‘A definition and illustration of democratic leadership’ Human Relations 47/8: 953-75. Reprinted in K. Grint (ed.) (1997) Leadership, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Gold, M. (ed.) (1999) The Complete Social Scientist. A Kurt Lewin Reader.

Hall, C.S. and Lindzey, G. (1978) Theories of Personality 3e, New York: John Wiley and Sons.

Johnson, D. W. and Johnson, R. T. (1995) ‘Positive interdependence: key to effective cooperation’ in R. Hertz-Lazarowitz and N. Miller (eds.) Interaction in Cooperative Groups. The theoretical anatomy of group learning, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kariel, H. S. (1956) ‘Democracy unlimited. Kurt Lewin’s field theory’, American Journal of Sociology 62: 280-89.

Kemmis, S. and McTaggart, R. (1988) The Action Research Planner, Geelong, Victoria: Deakin University Press.

Kolb, D. A. (1984) Experiential Learning. Experience as the source of learning and development, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.: Prentice-Hall.

Lewin, K. (1935) A dynamic theory of personality. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Lewin, K. (1936) Principles of topological psychology. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Lewin, K. (1948) Resolving social conflicts; selected papers on group dynamics. Gertrude W. Lewin (ed.). New York: Harper & Row, 1948.

Lewin, K. (1951) Field theory in social science; selected theoretical papers. D. Cartwright (ed.). New York: Harper & Row.

Lewin, K. and Lippitt, R. (1938) ‘An experimental approach to the study of autocracy and democracy. A preliminary note’, Sociometry 1: 292-300.

Lewin, K., Lippitt, R. and White, R. (1939) ‘Patterns of aggressive behaviour in experimentally created “social climates”’, Journal of Social Psychology 10: 271-99.

Lewin, K. and Grabbe, P. (1945) ‘Conduct, knowledge and acceptance of new values’ Journal of Social Issues 2.

Lippitt, R. (1949) Training in Community Relations, New York: Harper and Row.

McTaggart, R. (1996) ‘Issues for participatory action researchers’ in O. Zuber-Skerritt (ed.) New Directions in Action Research, London: Falmer Press.

Marrow, A. J. (1969) The Practical Theorist. : The Life and Work of Kurt Lewin, New York: Basic Books

Reid, K. E. (1981) From Character Building to Social Treatment. The history of the use of groups in social work, Westpoint, Conn.: Greenwood Press.

Schein, E (1995) 'Kurt Lewin's Change Theory in the Field and in the Classroom: Notes Toward a Model of Managed Learning', Systems Practice, http://www.solonline.org/res/wp/10006.html

Stringer, E. T. (1999) Action Research 2e, Thousand Oaks, CA.: Sage.

Ullman, D. (2000) 'Kurt Lewin: His Impact on American Psychology, or Bridging the Gorge between Theory and Reality', http://www.sonoma.edu/psychology/os2db/history3.html

Webb, G. (1996) ‘Becoming critical of action research for development’ in O. Zuber-Skerritt (ed.) New Directions in Action Research, London: Falmer Press.

Winter, R. (1987) Action-Research and the Nature of Social Inquiry. Professional innovation and educational work, Aldershot: Avebury.

Yalom, I. D. (1995) The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy 4e,New York: Basic Books.