A personal perspective on the development of social psychology in the twentieth century

Reflecting on his career as a social psychologist, Morton Deutsch guides us through a remarkable number of significant events that have shaped the field. He begins with his experiences tinder the leadership of Kurt Lewin and the impart of the intellectual atmosphere that prevailed at the Research Center for Group Dynamics, which shaped not only his dissertation but his entire value orientation as a social psychologist. He tells of his Inter work within the more applied atmosphere of the National Training Laboratory led by Ron Lippitt, describing his own particular research and many of the indelible contributions he has made to the field. Deutsch observes that his career as a social psychologist has centered on two continuing themes: cooperation, competition, and conflict on the one hand and distributive justice on the other. He concludes his reflections with the hope that future social psychologists will achieve a successful integration of three of the intellectual heroes of his youth: Freud, Marx and Lewin.