Abstract

SANTOS, André Vieira dos. Robert Yerkes' contribution to human engineering as an instrument of class domination: a first approximation. Estud. pesqui. psicol. [online]. 2018, vol.18, n.spe, pp. 1195-1214. ISSN 1808-4281.

The period from 1870 to 1920 is known as the one in which several theorists of American psychology establish the theoretical and political guidelines of the discipline's independence from other sciences and philosophical domain. The comparative psychology proposed by Robert Mearns Yerkes is one of the most important of the late nineteenth century and the first two decades of the following century. The author's works on the evolution of the central and peripheral nervous system and its relations with intelligence, taken together with military psychology and eugenics, enable, at least in part, the concretization of human engineering and its future applications in various sectors of the American society as an instrument of domination of the ruling class. As it is a vast work and of varied applications in everyday life, we think that this first approximation will be deepened in future investigations about the movements of the working class during the process of modernization of the industry and of the great social reform by which the American society happened to the time. These movements were widely neglected by the historiography of American psychology.

Keywords : History of Psychology; human engineering; Comparative Psychology; Eugenics; Military Psychology.

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