Gestalt

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Gestalt ([ɡəˈʃtalt]) is a theory of perception that emerged in Psychology in the early twentieth century. It is also known as configurationism (a theory of configurational properties).

This theory suggests that the human mind do not simply focus on each small component of an organized whole, but instead perceives all the individual elements as one single object.

Meaning: "when a group is established, it becomes a unified system with supervening qualities that cannot be understood by evaluating members individually", encouraging people to look at social dynamics in a holistic point of view.

This theory has been summarized by social psychologist Kurt Lewin using the dictum: "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts" (so the elements of an object or image that were put together are not reducible to the sum of those elements either).

In the plurality context
In the plurality context, the Gestalt theory means that a system is to be perceived as greater than the sum of its indivual system members (such as headmates and fragments, among other possibilities). So any individual change inevitably impacts the collective, whether members are aware of it or not.

Hence, any system is a "dynamic whole", meaning: every time a single part of the system changes/is altered/appears/disappears, the holistic perception of the whole inevitably changes as well.

It can be a minor change that does not affect anyone much (e.g, a system member acquired a new skill/role that does not directly impact others), but it can also provide a completely different perspective on life and modify severely the routines of the collective (e.g, a system that was structured only for three members discovers that there was actually a dormant fourth member all along and he just woke up).

Depending on the degree of the change, any shift in the "dynamic whole" can potentially cause a chain-reaction effect:


 * the system's position regarding other systems may have to be re-evaluated,
 * the system's way of functionning, its routines, and possibily its structure will be somewhat impacted,
 * the system members may need to redefine some of their roles,
 * the headspace may need to be re-organized,

The changing system may face new problematics and obstacles they did not encounter before. Thus, the system may need to adjust to its new dynamics by adding more changes (voluntarily or not), thus creating again new dynamics. This iterative process can go on indefinitely, or until reaching a state of stabilisation.

Original theorical framework
The key principles of Gestalt configurations are emergence, reification, multistability, and invariance. They are often categorised as optic illusions. These principles can be found (with illustrations) on an external website such as Wikipedia.

Etymology
The German word Gestalt used in Psychology can be translated as "form" and "shape", or even "pattern" or "configuration", referring to the way things are put together to form a whole object.

Related Terms
A Gestalt agrees to present an entity to the external world through internal collective agreement. (This plural term was inserted in the previous edition of this article and has not its own page yet.)