History of Behavioural Engineering: Eugenics, The Mental Hygiene Movement & the Tavistock Institute

The science of engineering attitudes and behaviours traces its roots back to the behvioural and social sciences. In the early 20th century, these fields surrounding the applied methods of behviourism had an intrinsic value system – understanding the human causes of social conflict, from the roots of crime to the effects of propaganda, seeking to resolve them in the service of social harmony and in ways consistent with the demands of political democracy. Through this medical idealism, those within this school of thought at the top of their respective fields aligned themselves with the eugenics movement - a destructive ideology that was preeminant within the entire medical community of the day and contingent on the theories of Charles Darwin, the first cousin of the man who founded eugenics. The amalgamation of eugenics and these fields of research became known as the Mental Hygiene Movement. The Tavistock Institute, central to early behaviourism and its applications, was the nucleus of this eugenic-centric mental hygience movement. It was this movement´s eugenic ideology that was adopted by the Nazi´s, not the other way around. Ranking members even providing material support to Nazi genocide programs just prior to assisting in the creation of the earliest protocols and doctrine for treating mental health through preventitive use of pharmaceuticals.From antiquated methods of engineering behaviour to its contemporary computational form - this is the history of behavioural engineering. Read more