Social interaction

by Michael Argyle

This is the first book-length work to reflect the recent trend in social psychology away from artificial laboratory test results. It focuses directly on the detailed, concrete elements of social behavior as they are observed in a real-life setting. Michael Argyle's approach here differs from that more generally taken in two respects. First, he discusses human interaction in terms of the basic elements of behavior-bodily and facial movements, gestures, eye-movements, facial expression, proximity, and orientation, the verbal and non-verbal aspects of communication. Second, he has drawn on research in such varied areas as psychiatry, anthropology, linguistics, ethology, developmental and organizational psychology, as well as on his own extensive experimental studies. Particular emphasis is given to the biological roots of interaction, and to its cultural setting. Social Interaction demonstrates a strong awareness of the current theories of social psychology, while restricting itself in exposition to the observable aspects of human interaction. The result is a comprehensive and stimulating introduction to social interaction. This is primarily a textbook for students of social psychology, but it covers a field that is of central importance for all students of the social and biological sciences. Michael Argyle (1925-2002) held the position of Reader in Social Psychology at Oxford University and was a Fellow of Woolfson College. He was the author of numerous books and papers in British and American journals, he helped found and, was joint editor of the British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology. He also played an important part in the establishment of the Social Psychology Section of the British Psychological Society and served as its Secretary and Chairman.

504 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1969

About the author

Social psychologist. He is regarded as one of Britain's best known and most productive academic psychologist of the twentieth century. He first read Mathematics, but had to serve in WWII as a navigator in the Royal Air Force, he read Moral Science and Experimental Psychology at Cambridge. From 1950 to 1952 he worked at the Psychological Laboratory at Cambridge, and in 1952 he became lecturer in Social Psychology at Oxford University, where he spent the whole of his academic career, being promoted to Reader in 1969. He was also tutor in psychology at Balliol College and a Founding Fellow of Wolfson College. Throughout his career, he showed strong preferences for experimental methods in social psychology, having little time for alternative approaches such as discourse analysis. Sonia Argyle (1922-1999) was his first wife.