Critical Response

Inadequate research

Lewin and his students were frequently criticized for publishing studies based on a relatively small number of subjects. Hoppe's study of aspiration, which is described below, used only 10 subjects, and the studies of leadership models and frustration in children, also described below, used only 20 and 30 subjects respectively. Lewin did not deny that studying a larger number of subjects would have improved the reliability of his findings, and added that "additional confirmation is always desirable." He also pointed out that his own results had always stood up well when his studies were replicated by other researchers. But he mentioned on another occasion, "I do not expect ever to live down the misunderstandings created by my attack on some ways in which statistics have been used in...