Gestalt Theory: History, Principle Assumptions And Research Fields

The article reveals the general idea of Gestalt theory, its basic assumptions and their development over around 100 years, concentrating on the most important research find-ings. Features of the theory and findings of the first generation of Gestaltists are pre-sented, including laws of perception, problem solving and motivation, social cognition. The developments in the last decades of the 20th century comprise contrariness as a perceptual feature and connections to modern system theory, especially to synergetics which offers new insights to existing findings. Also some new ideas explaining the joke structure and its consequences on amusement and laughter are presented. New devel-opments of the possibility of application of Gestalt theoretical principles to topics like language, culture and organizational development are shortly mentioned. Further re-search activities in these domains are expected. The author intends to show that Gestalt Theory is a wide, productive approach with vital developmental potential.