Engineering Psychology in the Cultural Context of the Soviet Science of the 1960s: The Experience of Boris Lomov’s Research Program

Abstract

The article examines the Soviet project of engineering psychology, set out by Boris Fedorovich Lomov. Its origins, tracing back to Lomov’s book Man and Technology, and the subsequent practical development and implementation of ideas are analyzed. The central emphasis of the paper is put on the ways this special Soviet project was positioned in the context of the key trends that marked the development in the humanities in the 1960s, as well as on its specific features within the Soviet science culture. The engineering psychology, championed in the USSR by Lomov, followed the impetus of man-machine systems that had pioneered in the USA in the 1940s. The conceptualization of this scientific industry emerged in the design of high-tech military systems that were controlled by both operator’s actions and automatic control systems. The infusion of psychological approaches in the evolution of such systems was predetermined by the fact that the new defense technologies were operating at greatly increased speed, thus rendering significant even marginal psychological factors. But the psychologic aspect of this specter of issues lacked attention in the model existed. To transform engineering psychology into a civil discipline, it was necessary to find a field to apply it and not to lose the far-reaching character and scale and to secure its demand. As a model for solving this problem in the American context, the experience of Alphonse Chapanis, who sought to realize the potential of engineering psychology in the widest possible number of industries, is considered. The book Man and Technology suggests that Lomov viewed this pattern of scientific culture as a benchmark. However, the implementation of a similar approach in the Soviet scientific culture and institutional area required different organizational solutions. These circumstances predetermined that the project of engineering psychology, originally leaning towards applied research, was implemented on the basis of the Institute of Psychology of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

Keywords

• engineering psychology
• cybernetics
• soviet psychology
• human factors