Force-field analysis is a framework, developed by the psychologist Kurt Lewin, for examining the forces that drive a situation toward a goal and the forces that hinder movement toward it, originally applied to social situations. The approach has become a significant contribution across social science, psychology, social psychology, community psychology, communication, organizational development, process management and change management, including its use for planning curricular or institutional change in education. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Facts
Core ClaimForce-field analysis is a framework, developed by Kurt Lewin, for looking at the factors or forces that influence a situation, distinguishing those that drive movement toward a goal from those that hinder it. 1 FAQs
What did Kurt Lewin mean by the field that force-field analysis examines?
Lewin's field is a person's or group's psychological environment, called the life space, and the analysis weighs helping forces against hindering forces within it.
In Lewin's thinking, the field is a Gestalt psychological environment that exists in an individual's mind, or in the collective mind of a group, at a certain point in time. When fully constructed it is what he called the life space, which describes a person's motives, values, needs, moods, goals, anxieties and ideals. Force-field analysis builds on that idea by sorting the forces in a situation into two kinds: helping forces that drive movement toward a goal, and hindering forces that block it. Lewin applied the same principles to group conflict, learning, adolescence, morale and other social phenomena.
Sources
1. Force-field analysis (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia Foundationlead paragraph
In social science, force-field analysis provides a framework for looking at the factors ("forces") that influence a situation, originally social situations.
References section, Lewin citation entry
Lewin, Kurt (May 1943).
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