ABSTRACT
Michael Argyle’s The Social Psychology of Work (1989) is a masterly work. Comprehensive and accurate, the text is written in that clear and easily read style that his colleagues both admire and envy. Each topic or issue is first set precisely and neatly in its general social psychological framework. Then its basic and most recent ramifications in the world of work are explored. Ill-informed opinion is not allowed to substitute for empirical evidence. The target audience specified in the preface justifies the selective focus on American–British problems and studies. It would have been beyond this reasonable scope to pose more radical or dramatic questions than those considered. The title justifies the adoption of, and concentration upon, the social psychological rather than a sociological or political perspective. But is there any significance to the fact that the main topics added to this second edition are stress, ill-health, mental health at work, unemployment and retirement? None of this quintet is a plus factor in the quality of life at work or at home, except perhaps the last. And one might ask how it comes about that the optimistic Zeitgeist of the early 1970s, with its occasionally voiced worries about the risks of boredom arising from the expectation of full employment and added leisure, becomes realized as stress, distress and unemployment in 1989?
