A LITTLE HISTORY

Perhaps the earliest roots of the field began when, fleeing from the Nazis, German-born social psychologist Kurt Lewin brought Gestalt psychology to the United States in the late 1930s. He was concerned that psychology might lose relevance to social problems (Bunker & Alban, 1997). His introduction of field theory, in which a dynamic field of forces influences human behavior, helped to create experimental social psychology as a new discipline.
Another significant contributor to the organizational change movement was Ron Lippitt, whose work was described by Art Kleiner (1996) in The Age of Heretics, a history of the 20th Century social movements. Lippitt was described as one of the heretics from the dominant institutions ...

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