Lippitt, Ronald

Professor of psychology and sociology at the University of Michigan.

Born and raised in Minnesota, Ronald Lippitt began what was to become a long and prolific career in social psychology at Springfield College in Massachusetts, where he received undergraduate and professional training in group work and received his B.S. Lippitt spent his junior year of college abroad on a Foreign Study Scholarship, studying under Jean Piaget at the Rousseau Institute at the University of Geneva, from which he received a Certificat de Pedagogie in Child Development in 1935. Lippitt then received his M.A. in Child Development (1938) and Ph.D. in Social Psychology (1940) from the University of Iowa, where he studied under Kurt Lewin. Lippitt assisted Lewin in his studies of the effects of authoritarian, democratic, and laissez-faire group leadership on group process and productivity in after-school boys social clubs. This work subsequently led to their co-founding of the field of group dynamics.

Upon receiving his Ph.D. in 1940, Lippitt taught as assistant professor of psychology at Southern Illinois University from 1940 to 1941. From 1941 through 1944 Lippitt was director of research for the National Council of Boy Scouts, where he developed a national study of the impact of leadership styles on character development climates. With the onset of World War II, he became an officer in the Commissioned Corps of the Public Health Service, conducting group therapy sessions for the navy. Lippitt then directed the Far East Psychological Warfare Training School for the Office of Strategic Services, with a multi-disciplinary staff including anthropologists Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict, media, intelligence specialists, and Japanese and Chinese psychiatrists. When the war ended, Lippitt became director of training for the Federal Security Agency. There he co-led with Leland Bradford a program of organization change intervention by a multiple entry strategy, in federal agencies and hospitals.

In 1946 Lippitt resumed work with Kurt Lewin, helping him to found the Research Center for Group Dynamics at M.I.T., where Lippitt was also an associate professor of social science from 1946 to 1948. In 1947 Lippitt, Lewin, Leland Bradford and Kenneth Benne co-founded the National Training Laboratories for Applied Behavioral Science (NTL) and invented the T-group (Basic Skill Training Group), or "Sensitivity Training" at Bethel, Maine, which was the first instance of laboratory training for organizational development. Upon Lewin's death in 1948, Lippitt moved the Research Center for Group Dynamics to the University of Michigan's Institute of Social Research, acting as program director in the Research Center, as well as associate professor of sociology and psychology at the university. Lippitt became full professor of sociology and psychology in 1952. In 1964, dissatisfied with the emphasis on pure research without concern for its utility, Lippitt founded, along with Floyd Mann, the Center for Research on the Utilization of Social Knowledge (CRUSK) as a part of the Institute of Social Research. This was a laboratory of planned change which became a training and consultation organization, drawing clients from the surrounding community.

In 1974 Lippitt retired as professor emeritus of psychology and sociology from the University of Michigan, in order to focus on assisting private and public sector systems in the use of behavioral science to improve the quality of service and productivity. In the following years he founded and participated in several organizations offering management and planned change consultation, including Human Resource Development Associates with Ken Cowing and Della Cowing; Hilltop Associates with Eva Schindler-Rainman; Organization Renewal, Inc. (ORI), with his brother Gordon Lippitt; Planned Change Associates, Inc.(PCA); and Xicom, Inc. Lippitt also ran a group in his home referred to as Lippitt and Associates or the Lippitt Cluster, in which once a month friends and colleagues met to share ideas, goals, and interactions. In conjunction with these organizations Lippitt conducted numerous workshops and training programs in the United States and abroad.

Throughout his academic and professional career, Lippitt published extensively, both individually and jointly with colleagues such as Eva Schindler-Rainman, with whom he frequently worked on projects concerning community organization and volunteerism. Lippitt is the author or co-author of over 200 articles and books, on such topics as group dynamics, futuring, the processes of learning, socialization and growth of children and youth, leadership, planned change and change agentry, community planning, and renewal and reconstruction of the traditional educational system and practices. (A complete bibliography is located in Box 1.)

A member of several professional societies, Lippitt was a fellow in the International Association of Applied Social Scientists, the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, the Association of Voluntary Action Scholars, the Clinical Sociology Association, and the American Psychological Association, in addition to serving on the editorial board of the Clinical Sociology Review. Honors Lippitt received during his career include the Distinguished Career Award of the Clinical Sociology Association in 1985, a Concurrent Resolution of Tribute from the Michigan Legislature in 1984, and honorary doctorates from Springfield College, in 1962, and Leslie College, in 1965.

Lippitt died October 28, 1986, at the age of 72, and was survived by his wife, Peggy Lippitt, son Larry Lippitt, daughters Martha Lippitt, Carolyn McCarthy and Connie Cohn, and nine grandchildren.