Vector psychology

 This part of Lewin’s system involved the concepts that were related to motivational aspects of human behaviour and thus have a major role to play in understanding human behaviour fully. According to Lewin, an individual is a complex energy system. Psychical energy is the one that is used to accomplish psychological work.

A state of disequilibrium may arise due to increase in tension in one or the other part of the system. When a person wishes to achieve equilibrium that results in creation of psychical energy and when the tension equalizes the system halts. Need has been described either as physiological condition (such as hunger, thirst, sex) or a psychological condition (such as desire to be rich). A distinction was also made between a need and a quasi-need. A quasi- need is one with specific intentions shaped by social factors (Lewin, 1951).

For instance, need to eat a specific pizza at a particular restaurant. Lewin also believed that needs are highly associated with tension systems and dissipation of tension is only possible with satisfaction of a particular need. Tension has been described as a state of disequilibrium between two or more states of the inner-personal region. This idea was tested by Bluma Zeigarnik. The subjects in this research were given a series of simple tasks to carry out.

In some instances, they were interrupted before the completion of the task and in others, they were allowed to finish the task to completion. It was hypothesized that the tension would dissipate when a task is completed, but tension persists for a longer duration if the task is interrupted. This assumption was tested by asking the subjects to recall different tasks they had performed. It was predicted that there would be a better recall for interrupted tasks in comparison to the completed ones.

The findings supported this prediction and this phenomenon was called the Zeigarnik effect. An explanation offered for this was that tension persisting from an unfinished tasksmay be a reason for the subjects to rehearse the material associated with that task. Later more evidence was found for this effect (Alper, 1948; Deutsch, 1954). Another important concept discussed by Lewin was vector. It refers to the psychological forces influencing the person to an extent that he/she moves in a particular direction.

Three properties of vectors have been highlighted. They are-direction (it may be towards or away from the goal object), strength (vector is said to be correlated with the valence of the object-attraction or repulsion, defining its strength), and a point of contact. A vector is represented by an arrow when related to a person (P). The longer is the line of arrow, greater is the strength of the vector. 

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