The study of the conditions for change begins appropriately with an analysis of the conditions for “no change,” that is, for the state of equilibrium. - Kurt Zadek Lewin

The objective of social change might concern the nutritional standard of consumption, the economic standard of living, the type of group relation, the output of a factory, the productivity of an educational team. It is important that a social standard to be changed does not have the nature of a “thing” but of a “process.”.

The research needed for social practice can best be characterized as research for social management or social engineering. It is a type of action research, a comparative research of the conditions and effects of various forms of social action, and research leading to social action. Research that produces nothing but books will not suffice.

[Lewin formally defines a Gestalt as:] a system whose parts are dynamically connected in such a way that a change of one part results in a change of all other parts.