Field Theory

Social Space: A Relational View of the World

Lewin's revolutionary approach to psychology was based on the idea that all psychological and social phenomena need to be understood in terms of ‘social space’. Social space is distinct from physical space, though the two constantly influence each other. Social space forms out of links created when people's thinking and feeling are put into action and elicit responses from others, which then shape their thinking, feeling and action. If the interaction is temporary or fleeting, a social space is unlikely to form. However, when interactions are sustained over time and become patterned, they take on a particular configuration that differentiates them from other patterned interactions. Differentiation is a mental act that leads to the creation of a space outside, but not wholly independent, of the individuals who constitute it. All relationships, from the simplest to the most complex, are differentiated social spaces. Couples, groups, organizations, cultures and whole societies are all configurations of social space. They differ in the level of complexity and their specific characteristics, but they all are based on the same fundamental construct.

Lewin's use of social space was strongly influenced by the philosophy of Ernst Cassirer and his concept of ‘relationalism’. Cassirer made a distinction between the logic of things, or substantialism, and a logic of relations, or relationalism. Substantialism is rooted in the intuitive sense that the world is constructed from independent, material objects and can be best grasped by understanding these things. It is also reflected in the widely accepted notion of causality as change, or variance, induced in one distinct thing as the result of the impact of another distinct thing. A ‘relational logic’, on the other hand, accords primacy to the relations among entities. In other words, reality is best grasped as an ordering of the elements of perception through a process of construction that gives them intelligibility and meaning.

Cassirer (1923/1953) argued that modern science was moving steadily from a substantive to a relational logic, using the concept of geometric space as a totally abstract way of representing physical relations. Space is not a physical concept but rather a mental creation that can be used to think relationally about making order from any given set of elements. Lewin adopted this idea of space as an essential construct for theorizing about the social world. He was one of the first social scientists to realize that psychology, and the social sciences in general, was limited by a substantialist logic that viewed reality in terms of separate entities (i.e. variables) that directly influence each other. He introduced the idea of a social space in order to shift the focus to a relational logic, which is essentially the basis for holism and ‘synergy’—that is, the whole (i.e. the relations) is greater than the sum of its parts (i.e. substantive entities). This whole, however, is totally abstract and invisible. What makes social space such a useful construct is that it focuses neither on the individual nor on the collective as the unit of analysis but rather on the processes through which individuals, in interaction with others, construct their shared worlds. It became the basis for the idea of group dynamics and concepts such as norms and cohesion.

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