Psychology Commons^™

Double-Loop Learning And Productive Reasoning: Chris Argyris’S Contributions To A Framework For Lifelong Learning And Inquiry, Kevin M. Clark

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

This article reviews social scientist and organizational researcher Chris Argyris’s publications from the 1970s through the 2000s about organizational learning. In his role as an action scientist and consultant, working to facilitate learning in organizational contexts and drawing on earlier work in psychology from John Dewey and Kurt Lewin, Argyris developed his “theory of action” perspective on learning and interpersonal inquiry. According to Argyris, learning involves increasing the effectiveness of our actions so as to produce the intended results. He argued, however, that we are often unaware of the extent to which our actions inhibit learning in social contexts. Argyris …