Topological concept

Lewin use topology, a nonmetric branch of mathematics, both of present his structural field concepts in mathematical terns and to depict them in diagrammatic form. He attempted though that approach to clarify the interconnections of the different regions of the field at a particular moment and to show the nature of the boundaries separating them from each other. Person and environment together make up what Lewin called the “life space” within that space, which represents a field in constant flux, Lewin placed everything that influence behavior at a given time. In his topological diagrams, person and environment are depicted as two separated areas that together constitute the life space and that are enclosed within it. The whole area is bounded off from the nonpsychological environment or foreign hull, much as the person and the environment are separated from each other by a boundary within it. The environment, as Lewin regarded it, does not necessarily correspond to external reality. Rather, the term refers to the psychological environment, the environment as persons interpret it. People and their environment are the basic structural elements in Lewin’s concept of topological space. Group and individual behavior are thought of in terms of the interaction of regions within the life space, along with those interactions between the life space and adjacent areas of the nonpsychological environment that life outside. Within the life space, both the person and the environment are regarded as further subdivided into areas or cells be additional boundaries, the subdivided into areas or calls be additional boundaries, the subdivisions being represented be increasingly complex topological diagrams.

To predict behavior, one must identify all the environmental regions influencing the field as well as all those regions operating at the time within the person and in impinging segments of the foreign hull, and one must recognize and understand the quality of their interactions.