Michael Argyle (psychologist)

Michael Argyle (August 11, 1925, Nottingham – September 6, 2002) was one of the best known English social psychologists of the twentieth century. He spent most of his career at the University of Oxford, and worked on numerous topics. Throughout his career, he showed strong preferences for experimental methods in social psychology, having little time for alternative approaches such as discourse analysis.

Life

Michael Argyle was born on August 11, 1925. He studied mathematics at University and served in the Second World War, later going on to gain a First in Experimental Psychology from the University of Cambridge, in 1950. Two years later, he became the first lecturer in social psychology at the University of Oxford. At the time, Oxford University was, along with the London School of Economics, one of only two universities in the United Kingdom to have a department of social psychology. Argyle lectured for many years at Oxford University as Reader in Social Psychology. After his retirement, he became Professor Emeritus at Oxford Brookes University. One of the co-founders of the journal British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, Argyle regularly attended social psychology conferences, and had a great passion for Scottish country dancing.

Argyle died on September 6, 2002, at the age of 77, of injuries suffered in a swimming accident, from which he never fully recovered.

Work

Argyle made contributions to many fields in psychology, including:

• psychology of religion
• social skills
• nonverbal communication
• the psychology of happiness
• the psychology of social class

Nonverbal communication

Some of Argyle's best-known contributions were to this field. He was especially interested in gaze. One of his best-known books relevant to this field, The Psychology of Interpersonal Behaviour, became a best-seller. Argyle (Argyle et. al. 1970) had subjects judge a person on the dimension happy/sad and found that words spoken with minimal variation in intonation had an impact about 4 times larger than face expressions seen in a film without sound. Thus, the relative importance of spoken words and facial expressions may be very different in studies using different set-ups.

The Psychology of Religion

Argyle, a committed Christian, published empirical works on the psychology of religion. His early work in this field was summarized in his book Religious Behaviour (1958), which includes a systematic attempt to evaluate the various theories in this field. He later collaborated with Benjman Beit-Hallahmi to produce a later book, "The Psychology of Religious Beliefs, Behaviour and Experience" (1997). Both books show Argyle's commitment to empiricism in psychology, and list results of surveys into topics such as beliefs in the afterlife or frequencies of religious experience in the general population.

The Psychology of Happiness

One of Argyle's most notable later contributions was to the psychology of happiness. Keen that more research should be done in this field, he published "The Psychology of Happiness" in 1987, 2nd edition 2001. In this book he listed and discussed empirical findings on happiness, including that happiness is indeed promoted by relationships, sex, eating, exercise, music, success, etc., but probably not by wealth.

The Psychology of Social Class

Although social class is a concept largely studied by sociologists, Argyle's later work showed increasing interest in promotion of socio-psychological perspective on social class. Differences in religious involvement across social class and patterns of social relationship across social class are areas of interest to social psychologists here, and these fields show Argyle was keen to link this area to other areas which he had studied.

Major Works

• [1957] 1974. The Scientific Study of Social Behaviour. Greenwood Press Reprint. ISBN 978-0837171081
• [1958] 1965. Religious Behaviour. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. ASIN B001NXVCJG
• 1962. Training Managers. London: Acton Society Trust. ASIN B002LG2QKS
• [1964] 1967. Psychology and Social Problems. London: Tavistock Publications Ltd. ISBN 978-0422723305
• [1967] 1999. The Psychology of Interpersonal Behaviour. London: Penguin. ISBN 978-0140172744
• [1969] 2007. Social Interaction. Aldine Transaction. ISBN 978-0202309125
• [1972] 1989. The Social Psychology of Work. London: Penguin. ISBN 978-0140134728
• 1973. Skills With People: A Guide for Managers. New York, NY: Random House Business Books ISBN 978-0091164812 (with Elizabeth Sidney and Margaret Brown)
• [1975] 2010. Bodily Communication. London: Routledege. ISBN 978-0415051149
• 1976. Gaze and Mutual Gaze. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521208659 (with Mark Cook)
• [1978] 1990. Social Skills and Mental Health. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0415012621 (with Peter Trower, Bridget Bryant, and John S. Marzillier)
• 1979. Person to Person: Ways of Communicating. New York, NY: Harper & Row. ISBN 978-0063180970 (with Peter Trower)
• 1981. Social Situations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521298810 (with Adrian Furnham and Jean Ann Graham)
• 1985. The Anatomy of Relationships: And the Rules and Skills Needed to Manage Them Successfully. London: Penguin. ISBN 978-0140134711
• [1987] 2002. The Psychology of Happiness. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0415226653
• 1991. Cooperation: The Basis of Sociability. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0415035453
• 1992. The Social Psychology of Everyday Life. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0415010726
• 1993. The Psychology of Social Class. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0415079556
• 1996. The Social Psychology of Leisure. London: Penguin. ISBN 978-0140238877
• 1997. The Psychology of Religious Behaviour, Belief and Experience. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0415123310 (with Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi)
• 1998. The Psychology of Money. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0415146067 (with Adrian Furnham)

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Colman, Andrew M. 2004. Argyle, (John) Michael (1925–2002), social psychologist. Oxford University Press. Retrieved September 3, 2011.
• Lamb, Roger, and Mary Sissons Joshi. 2002. Michael Argyle. The Psychologist 15(12): 624-625. Retrieved September 3, 2011.
• Robinson, Peter. 2002. Obituary: Michael Argyle. The Guardian. Retrieved September 3, 2011.
• Robinson, Peter. 2003. In memoriam: Michael Argyle. Social Psychological Review 5(1): 3-7.

External Links

All links retrieved Retrieved September 3, 2011.

• Professor Michael Argyle: Interpreter of 'body language' and nonverbal communication The Independent
• Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, Michael Argyle Psychology of Religion Pages by Michael Nielsen, Ph.D.

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