Psychological theory to serve psychological engineering

Psychological engineering is engineering applied to individual human beings. To delimit this we can exclude some boundary areas:

• Engineering might be applied to larger social groupings in sociological (social)

engineering, economic engineering, political engineering, etc.

• Engineering might be applied to parts and components of individual human beings such as in medical and genetic engineering

At the core is the concept and assumption that psychological engineering is possible and sometimes desirable, but that it needs the appropriate kind of psychological theory.

The core argument has several components.

We posit that engineering cannot succeed without good theories. The theory allows the engineer to predict what would happen if … This prediction or simulation allows specifications and designs to be interpreted. It also allows a step by step understanding of the sequences in a project. A successful engineering project must have an outcome that fulfills the expectations of the design. It must also be feasible step by step.

We differentiate between novel designs and traditional designs and projects.

• For traditional designs and projects, the theory can be based on experience. We predict that the future will be like the past, and that therefore this design will behave like previous equivalent designs, and the project will proceed like similar prior projects.
• For novel designs and projects we need more explicit and more formal theories so that we can calculate or simulate what would happen if …

We would claim that most current psychological engineering is based on traditional designs and projects, rather than on explicit and formal theories.

It may be useful to briefly examine some areas of psychological engineering.

Education

Marriage counseling and therapy

Clinical and some psychiatric treatments

Prisoner rehabilitation

Analogous to computers, we can differentiate between hardware and software.

• For computers
• Hardware refers primarily to electronic systems, even though keyboards, cases, and other components might be included.
• Software refers primarily to high level programs, even though assembler level programming with electronic components such as UARTs might be included.
• For individual human beings
• Hardware refers primarily to the nervous system and the built-in physical structure such as eyes and the muscle-skeleton structure. Built-in functions such as instincts would be included here.
• Software refers primarily to cognitive functions such as problem solving and planned activity.

The second concept and assumption is that