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The author analyses the peculiar psychological characteristics of the reward-punishment situation. He envisages reward and punishment as educational measures adopted for the purpose of inducing children to behave in a particular way. The activities of a child acting under such inducement contrast with the spontaneous behaviour which results from his own interest in things.
Lewin holds that, in order to understand the workings of an intervention from without or of a piece of actual behaviour, it is essential that the particular process be viewed as a part of the total, concrete situation of the moment. 'To form a mental conception of what actually takes place it is always necessary to relate the subject, with his peculiar characteristics, to the elements which make up the situation at the time. In work and in play, in self-expression, in behaviour, in affect—everywhere the actual process is partly determined by the structure of his environment at the time' (p. 5). Hence the fundamental importance of a scientific account of the psychological environment. The method selected by Lewin as most appropriate is an exact topological presentation of the whole structure of the situation. Topology is a young, mathematical science, a non-metrical, qualitative theory of connections, very general in its nature. The fact that it is concerned with the exact definition of concepts such as 'connected', 'separated', 'boundary', 'between', etc., makes it peculiarly applicable to psychological problems.
In the case of a child who does something (e.g. plays with a doll) because he is interested, the structure of the situation is comparatively simple. In Lewin's terminology it is characterized by its dependence on a positive incitement. If the child encounters difficulties in engaging in the play which attracts him, he is at first deterred from his goal but soon tries to reach it in roundabout ways. The situation is different when his activity is not spontaneous but is forced upon