Kurt Koffka

Born Mar. 18, 1886, in Berlin; died Nov. 22, 1941, in Northampton, Mass. German-American psychologist; one of the founders of gestalt psychology.

Koffka was a student of C. Stumpf. He became an assistant professor in 1911 and a professor in 1918 (to 1924) at the University of Giessen. In 1927 he became a professor at Smith College in Northampton, Mass. Together with M. Wertheimer and W. Köhler, Koffka published the journal Psychologische Forschungy, the principal organ of gestalt psychology. Lecturing in the USA and Great Britain during the early 1920’s, he played an important role in the worldwide popularization of gestalt psychology. His most important work, Principles of Gestalt Psychology (1935), is a fundamental summary of the achievements of the gestalt school. Koffka was the first of the gestalt psychologists to address himself to problems of the psychological development of the child (1921).