Michael Argyle (psychologist)

John Michael Argyle (August 11, 1925 – 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.

Life

Michael Argyle was born in Nottingham, England, on August 11, 1925. He was the only child of Phyllis and George Edgar Argyle, both of whom died when Michael was eleven years old (Coleman 2004). He attended the Nottingham High School for Boys and entered the University of Cambridge to study Mathematics.

The Second World War interrupted his studies, and he trained and then served in the Royal Air Force (RAF) as a navigator. He left the RAF in 1947 and returned to Cambridge where he completed his undergraduate studies, gaining a first-class degree in Experimental Psychology in 1950. During his time at Cambridge he met and married Sonia Kemp, a graduate of Girton College, Cambridge. They had four children: three daughters (Miranda, Rosalind, and Ophelia) and a son (Nicholas).

Argyle spent a further two years at Cambridge, doing postgraduate research, before being appointed the first lecturer in Social Psychology at the University of Oxford (Coleman 2004). 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.

He remained at Oxford, becoming a founding Fellow of Wolfson College in 1966, a Reader in Psychology in 1969, Vice-Regent of Wolfson in 1989, and Emeritus Professor at Oxford Brookes University. In addition to lecturing, Argyle was very active in research and his work attracted many distinguished colleagues as well as supervising over 50 doctoral students who enjoyed both his scholarship and warm social support during their studies. His presence enlivened social events with his jokes and humor which included a fondness for brightly colored ties, including a pink flashing bow tie (Joshi and Lamb 2002).

Argyle also served as visiting professor at universities in Canada, Australia, and the United States, and was awarded honorary doctorates from several universities, including Oxford (1979) and Adelaide and Brussels (1982), as well as many other distinguished awards.

In the course of his career Argyle authored or edited 44 books and numerous articles in academic journals. His book, The Psychology of Interpersonal Behaviour first published in 1967 was an international best seller. The article, "Eye-contact, distance, and affiliation," co-authored with Janet Dean and published in Sociometry in 1965, became a citation classic in Current Contents, as did his 1975 book co-authored with Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, The Social Psychology of Religion. One of the co-founders of the British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, Argyle regularly attended social psychology conferences and promoted the field energetically and successfully. He was also the founder and chair of the Social Psychology section of the British Psychological Society.

Argyle was a deeply religious man and played an active role in the Anglican church, especially in his later years (Coleman 2004). He also had a great passion for Scottish country dancing and a love of twentieth-century art. A devoted family man, he shared these passions with his wife and children. When Sonia became ill he supported her throughout her long illness until her death in 1999. Although devastated by the loss of his wife, he remarried in 2000. His second wife, Gillian Thompson, also shared his passion for dancing and swimming and were actively involved in church life.

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) put forward the hypothesis that whereas spoken language is normally used for communicating information about events external to the speakers, non-verbal codes are used to establish and maintain interpersonal relationships.

In his book, Bodily Communication originally published in 1975, Argyle concluded there are five primary functions of nonverbal bodily behavior in human communication:

• Express emotions
• Express interpersonal attitudes
• To accompany speech in managing the cues of interaction between speakers and listeners
• Self-presentation of one’s personality
• Rituals (greetings)

An interesting question is: When two people are communicating face-to-face, how much of the meaning is communicated verbally, and how much is communicated non-verbally? Studies have analysed the relative contribution of verbal and nonverbal signals under naturalistic situations. Using video tapes shown to the subjects, Argyle et. al. (1970) analysed the communication of submissive/dominant attitude and found that non-verbal cues had 4.3 times the effect of verbal cues. The most important effect was that body posture communicated superior status in a very efficient way.

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. In this book he listed and discussed empirical findings on happiness, including findings that happiness is indeed promoted by interpersonal relationships, sex, eating, exercise, music, success, and other factors, 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.

Legacy

Oxford Brookes University, where Argyle served as Emeritus Professor for ten years supervising many graduate students, awards the Michael Argyle Memorial Prize for the best Psychology Project submitted each year.

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
• 1975. Social Psychology of Religion. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0710080431 (with Benjamin Beit- Hallahmi)
• 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

• Argyle, Michael, Veronica Salter, Hilary Nicholson, Marylin Williams, and Philip Burgess. 1970. The communication of inferior and superior attitudes by verbal and non-verbal signals. British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 9: 222-231.
• 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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