Psychology Of Interpersonal Behaviour

by Michael Argyle

The first edition of this book outlined what amounted to a breakthrough in the analysis of social behaviour. Since then it has become widely used as an introductory textbook of social psychology. It is invaluable to anyone interested in the subject or whose work involves dealing with people, as well as anyone who wants to know how to make friends and influence people. For this new, fifth edition, Michael Argyle includes the latest research on non-verbal communication, social skills and happiness.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Science, Sociology, Communication, Social Science

Paperback

First published May 30, 1967

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.

Reviews

[Yana Shevkirova]

I am sure that at the time, this was considered a valuable work and it does highlight the specifications and reasons behind the interpersonal behaviour. It provides good explanations and covers the subject well.
However, I personally, did not feel like I could learn much from it, most of what was said was logical and based on common knowledge.

[Veronica Beccabunga]

“some people say that psychology is mainly common sense dressed up in fancy language” was their opening sentence for the book, but this book proves just that. was not impressed but also aware that its an older book.

[John Turlockton]

I read the edition from the 70s, so it was of course radically outdated. I am curious the changes between that and the 90s edition. (Also curious how some people found such an old book, there are reviews here from the 2010s. Mine was owned by an elderly relative)

The most useful thing I got from it was the idea of 'Social Techniques', breaking social interaction down into 'techniques' and using the ones that might be most appropriate for the given situation. However, the book doesn't really go into sufficient detail on this and when is best to use a given technique.

Big sections are dedicated to specialist topics like interpersonal behaviour and mental conditions (outdated ideas of mental conditions), or interpersonal behaviour in different occupations. Not enough detail is given for those topics for someone interested, and they distract from the topic of interpersonal behaviour in daily life. In general the book is very vague and does not give much practical or useful information. Nor does it provide an over-arching theory or even a summation of knowledge on the topic. It is also very light on experiments. Sometimes they are referenced but far to often the author uses language like 'it is probably the case that...' or 'likely this is because...'

Overall, it is not very useful but was more interesting than I thought it would be.

[Kathryn DeSinaasappelen]

This book was being given away at my library so I picked it up, and it as an incredible read. Admittedly it is dated. The last case study referenced was in 1994. However the information was insightful. I found myself taking notes because I enjoyed content and wanted to remember it.


Full review can be found here: https://wp.me/p92q9w-bj

[David Lai]

A book about human beings, what they do, the kinds of things they say, and why they malfunction. Useful for all owners, es ... pe ... cial ... ly ... those ... like ... me ... who ... wish ... to ... become ... more ... hu ... man....