Geoffrey Beattie, Big Brother’s Psychologist

The British psychologist Geoffrey Beattie has been studying non-verbal communication. For example, through his research he has shown that the way we move our hands while speaking is also a form of communication.

He has also written countless books and articles on the subject. He has also won many awards for his research on nonverbal communication. Beattie is one of the psychologists who has become known for his work.

In the UK, Geoffrie Beattie was the face of psychology for the Big Brother program. He has always gone to great lengths to help show laymen how psychology can help us in everyday life.

His book, Get the Edge: How Simple Changes Will Transform Your Life,  is a good example of this. It has even been translated into several languages.

Geoffrey Beattie’s Biography

Geoffrey Beattie was born in Belfast. He obtained a degree in psychology from the University of Birmingham. He also obtained a doctorate from Trinity College, Cambridge.

He then became a professor of social psychology at the University of Sheffield. He showed an early interest in the connection between non-verbal communication, language and thinking.

Beattie grew up in a region (Northern Ireland) that was constantly embroiled in violent conflict and riots. This led him to write several books on Ulster and the situation of the Protestants. He also discussed this in a series of articles he wrote for The Guardian  .

The media aspect

He has made several documentaries about Northern Ireland for major companies such as the BBC. Beattie has also been on the radio many times. This was mainly due to his interest in the relationship between sport and psychology.

The really big media moments came for him thanks to his participation in one of the seasons of the British program Big Brother. However, this has also caused him many problems. His participation as an expert in this program caused a lot of controversy in the academic world.

His colleagues from the world of psychology condemned him. They felt that he gave credibility to what they considered to be a gross exploitation of people for commercial purposes. Despite their criticism, he remained attached to the program.

What did Beattie think of what he was doing? According to him, it was no different from analyzing the non-verbal communication of a politician or any other famous personality. That controversy has also caused people to (mistakenly) view him as Big Brother  ‘s psychologist .

Multimodal communication

The research work of Geoffrey Beattie has given our understanding of nonverbal communication a completely new theoretical framework. What we know about the relationship between language and nonverbal communication in conversation has been revolutionized. This has many consequences for an effective way of communicating.

Beattie often turned his attention to the lexical (proper to the word) gestures when speaking. He also focused on the cognitive, social and functional purposes of the gestures. In other words, what he focused on was how gestures and speech work together or develop an even more complex form of communication.

In particular in certain cases, this is interesting to investigate. For example, when a person’s lexical gestures reflect a part of their thoughts that they have not expressed in words.

What he also explored is how we go about deciphering other people’s lexical gestures. In addition, he wanted to understand why some gestures immediately attract the eyes and attention of another person.

In this area there is another interesting aspect of his research. After all, this theory offers potential applications in advertising. His work on this theme has even earned him the Mouton d’Or award for the best semiotic research.

Geoffrey Beattie and Hidden Racist Bias

There is another fascinating topic that this brilliant researcher has studied: hidden racist bias. He specifically focused on the most subtle and unconscious aspects of human beings. In this way he investigated how subcutaneous racist attitudes influence the decisions people make.

In particular, he studied the way people (literally) look at each other. From this point of view, he wanted to see if your way of looking reflects the idea you form about the person in front of you when they are of a different race.

In recent years, Geoffrey Beattie has also begun to study the psychological barriers that prevent people from adopting more sustainable lifestyles. He has conducted some remarkable analyzes on consumerism and the market.

He wants to understand how consumer attitudes are changing. The aim is to look at how to ensure that people act in a more responsible manner in terms of climate change.

We can’t deny it, Geoffrey Beattie is a fascinating figure in psychology right now. Whether you love him or hate him, the fact is that he has done a lot to bring the knowledge of psychology to the general public.