Partizipation und Effizienz. Demokratische Gruppendynamik bei Kurt Lewin

This article sheds light on the understanding of democracy in early experimental social psychology and the emerging group dynamics as pioneered by German-Jewish psychologist Kurt Lewin (1890–1946). Based on two central experimental settings—the Democracy Experiments (1936–1938) and the Food Habits Study (1942)—it is shown that two lines of the Lewinian tradition, that may appear as separate today, were of equal origin in Lewin’s work and prove to be closely intertwined: On the one hand, his democracy-promoting approach and, on the other, the application of ‘democratic’ group methods in the economic world with the aim of increasing efficiency. Against the backdrop of rising fascism and authoritarian systems, it was of central importance to Lewin that democracy could prevail against its enemies. Thus, between 1936 and 1946, Lewinian group psychology developed the apparatus of an efficient democracy, which combined participatory and activating group methods with the careful, indirect steering of these groups through ‘democratic’ leadership.