Social Encounters

Contributions to Social Interaction

Michael Argyle

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351490382
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Social Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Social Encounters is an approach to social psychology that is not what one might expect to find in textbooks on this subject. As a companion to Social Interaction advocated by Michael Argyle and his associates, it has been used by a rapidly growing number of researchers in social psychology, and related aspects of ethology, anthropology, and linguistics. The two key ideas are to study the detailed processes of social interaction at the level of the elements of interaction, and to relate social behavior to its biological basis and cultural setting.This work collects excellent representative studies of different aspects of social interaction; as such they are important in their own right. Within the general approach described, a range of different academic orientations are included. All selections report empirical findings, and most of them introduce conceptual notions as well. One achievement of the volume has been to establish the basic elements of which social interaction consists; current research is concerned with finding out precisely how these elements function.The contributors agree that the field consists of various signals: verbal and non-verbal, tactile, visible and audible, bodily contact, proximity, orientation, bodily posture, physical appearance, facial expression, movements of head and hands, direction of gaze, timing of speech, emotional tone of speech, speech errors, type of utterance and linguistic structure of utterance. These elements can be further analyzed and divided into categories or dimensions; each plays a distinctive role in social interaction. Social behavior is studied in natural settings or replicas of natural settings, for which there are cultural rules familiar to the subjects. This is a pioneering statement in sociobiology.

Part One
The Biological and Cultural Roots of Social Interaction

Recent field studies of non-human primates have greatly increased our understanding of human social interaction. The biological purpose of social behaviour can be seen more clearly in these animals; human behaviour is very similar in a number of ways, so insight can be obtained into the probable biological basis of human social behaviour. DeVore (Reading 1) gives an excellent survey of the main varieties of social behaviour and social organization in non-human primates. However, this behaviour is not entirely innate, and in man it is less so, since innate factors are greatly modified by culture. Another very important difference between man and other primates is our ability to use language, which of course greatly affects our social behaviour. There are differences between cultures, both in the languages used and in the systems of non-verbal signalling. Watson and Graves (Reading 2) carried out an excellent study comparing various aspects of non-verbal signalling in pairs of Americans and pairs of Arabs. There are other differences between cultures – rules governing social behaviour, cognitive categories, beliefs and values. One of the main sources of variation within cultures is social class. Bernstein has found that there are class differences in the styles of speech used. Bernstein and Henderson (Reading 3) found that middle- and working-class mothers make different use of verbal and non-verbal communication when instructing their children.

1 Irven DeVore

Primate Behavior

I. DeVore, ‘Primate behavior’, from International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, vol. 14, 1968, pp. 351–60.

Man is a large, bipedal, diurnal primate closely related to the living great apes. Human behavior is based on a rich social heritage made possible by a tool-dependent culture and the unique properties of language. However, in most of the fundamental features of his social life, such as prolonged care of immature offspring and lifelong association between related adults, man is a typical Old-World primate. Because man is most closely related to the Old-World monkeys and apes, the following discussion is confined primarily to these forms and directed to those issues of most interest to the social sciences.

Living primates

There are about six hundred varieties of living non-human primates, divided into some fifty genera and two hundred species. Because of this extraordinary diversity, ranging from such forms as the small, insectivore-like tree shrews and ‘mouse lemurs’ to the great apes and man, it is sometimes assumed that the behavior of living primates can be arranged along an evolutionary scale of increasing behavioral similarity to man. However, no living primate is the ancestor of any other, and many varieties have had separate evolutionary histories for tens of millions of years. Every living species has survived by specialized adaptations, and while it is possible to make some broad generalizations about the physical characteristics of prosimians, monkeys and apes (Clark, 1960), behavioral comparisons are more difficult. Washburn and Hamburg (1965) have recently discussed the classification of the primate order from a behavioral point of view.

The many varieties of monkeys alone range in size from creatures weighing less than a pound to others weighing more than one hundred pounds. They have exploited a wide variety of jungle and open woodland habitats, frequently achieving population densities of one hundred or more individuals per square mile. The Old-World monkeys (Cercopithecidae) are divided into two subfamilies, the Cercopithecinae and the Colobinae; the latter group is distinguished by a specialized stomach capable of digesting large quantities of mature leaves. Brief observations have been made of several species of Colobinae, but the only form studied in detail is the common langur of India and Ceylon Presbytis spp (Jay, 1965). Among the Cercopithecinae, numerous studies have been made of the two closely related ground-adapted forms, the African baboon (Papio) and the Asian macaques (Macaca). Of the other two basic groups of Cercopithecinae, the mangabeys (Cercocebus) and the guenons, or vervets (Cercopithecus), a long-term field study has been made of only one, a ground-adapted species, Cercopithecus aethiops (Struhsaker, 1965).

The four apes, the Pongidae, are the gibbon (including the siamang), the orangutan, the gorilla and the chimpanzee. All of the apes differ from the monkeys in that the trunk is ‘short, wide and shallow … the lumbar region is short… and the shoulder and arm muscles are especially adapted to abduction, flexion, and rotation’ (Washburn and Hamburg, 1965, p. 9). Because of this adaptation to climbing and the ability to hang or swing from branches, to brachiate, apes have a ‘vertical’ posture, thus differing from the horizontal, quadrupedal monkeys, and it is no surprise that in their structure and bodily movements the apes closely resemble man. Physically, and to some extent behaviorally, man is most like the African great apes – the gorilla and the chimpanzee. But apes are confined to heavily wooded areas, and some of the behavioral patterns which have enabled man to travel long distances in open country are more closely paralleled in the behavior of terrestrial monkeys, such as baboons and macaques. In fundamental senses such as hearing, eyesight and smell and in the organization of the brain, the viscera and the reproductive organs, man, the apes and the Old-World monkeys share a basic biological pattern which distinguishes them from all other mammals, including New World monkeys and other primates.

Field studies of primates

Although attempts were made to study the African apes soon after their discovery in the nineteenth century, most reports of monkey and ape behavior in the wild remained anecdotal until Carpenter observed the howler monkeys of Panama in 1931. In succeeding years, other field studies were attempted, but these were usually brief; then, in the 1950s, investigators in Japan, the United States and Europe independently initiated a variety of field studies emphasizing long-term, systematic observation of primates living in natural habitats.

Most field studies have been made on monkey species that spend large amounts of time on the ground, where observation conditions are easiest. Because of their similarity to man, all the living apes except the orangutan have been the subject of at least one major field study. Long-term studies of free-ranging groups in monkey colonies have also contributed valuable data. The Japan Monkey Center has kept records of individual monkeys in its colonies since the early 1950s. Beginning with Altmann in 1958 (see Buettner-Janusch et al., 1962), various investigators have restudied the rhesus monkey colony established on Cayo Santiago by Carpenter in 1938; in fact, since 1958 almost all the members of this free-ranging colony have been tattooed for identification. Because the life cycle of primates is so long, field workers cannot ordinarily ascertain sibling or mother-offspring bonds between adults, and yet these relationships are proving to be very important in some species. (For a more complete history of field studies see Southwick, 1963, pp. 1–6; and Washburn, Jay and Lancaster, 1965.)

Laboratory studies of primates, especially of the common Indian rhesus monkeys, have continued without interruption since the 1930s. Contemporary views of such topics as discrimination, operant conditioning, perception, and learning have been summarized by Schrier, Harlow and Stollnitz (1965). Recent studies of hemoglobins, blood serums, chromosomes, the nervous system, and the skin have been reported by Buettner-Janusch (1963–4). There are two journals devoted entirely to primate studies, Primates and Folia primatologica, and there are many films of primate behavior.

The formerly facile generalizations about monkey and ape behavior are no longer tenable. Although only about a dozen of the several hundred varieties of living primates have been studied to date, it is already clear that primates exploit a wide variety of ecological niches, that they live in different kinds of social groups, and that different species display quite different temperaments. Some species are distributed over large geographical areas, and group structure and behavior have been found to vary significantly between different populations of the same species (Jay, 1965). The unique life history of every individual produces distinctive patterns of temperament and social behavior among the members of a single group. All of these variables make it inevitable that there will be important exceptions to many of the following generalizations.

Primate group structure

Most vertebrate social groups undergo a variety of changes in group composition during the year. Changes are correlated with such phenomena as the abundance of food, the mating season, the birth season and the maturation of offspring. During the mating season adult males may drive off young males and form harems of receptive females; mothers may leave the group altogether when they give birth, living apart until their offspring are able to support themselves, or females with immature offspring may form separate bands of their own. Some or all of these groups may participate in seasonal migrations. The result is a ‘population with changing aggregations of individuals during the year cycle.

The social group of the Old-World monkeys and the apes is very different. Membership in the social group is usually continuous, and group composition may remain stable over many years. Typically, an individual is born, matures, leads its adult life, and dies in the same group. While there are interesting exceptions to these generalizations, they are so characteristic of a wide variety of monkey groups that it is convenient to speak of a distinctive group organization, the ‘troop’. A troop so defined is a group of several adults of both sexes, together with juveniles and infants, which maintains a social identity and spatial unity that persists through the annual cycle and transcends the life-span of individual members. Such a troop is easily recognizable to the field observer because its boundaries are typically defended against outsiders. This social organization describes the basic social group of such Old-World monkeys as langurs, baboons, macaques, vervets (Cercopithecus aethiops), and colobus; of the New World howler monkey (Alouatta palliata), and perhaps spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi) (see Table 1). Less complete studies suggest that this type of group organization may also be characteristic of at least some species of mangabeys and some other species of Cercopithecus. The troop is also characteristic of Lemur macaco and probably of some other species of lemur. The description of the troop would apply to the social organization of the mountain gorilla, except that members may move in and out of some mountain gorilla groups rather freely.

Old-World monkey and gorilla troops average about twenty-five individuals, but normal groups may be as small as ten or number more than 200. Th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• Part One The Biological and Cultural Roots of Social Interaction
• Part Two The Elements of Social Behaviour
• Part Three Perception of the Other during Interaction
• Part Four Two-Person Interaction
• Part Five Interaction in Groups and Organizations
• Part Six Personality and Social Interaction
• Part Seven The Self and Social Interaction
• Part Eight Training in Social Skills
• Further Reading
• Acknowledgements
• Author Index
• Subject Index