SOME HISTORICAL NOTES ON SPANISH SCIENTIFIC PSYCHOLOGY AND ITS PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT.

Heliodoro Carpintero

Complutense University of Madrid

INTRODUCTION
A DISTANT TRADITION
THE 19TH-CENTURY TRADITION
PSYCHOTECHNICS
PSYCHOLOGY AND THE CIVIL WAR
CONTEMPORARY PSYCHOLOGISTS
MAIN TOPICS IN CURRENT SPANISH PSYCHOLOGY
REFERENCES

ABSTRACT

Psychology in Spain is going through a period of growth and expansion. It seems to be developing in two main directions: an important movement towards applications and an emphasis on theoretical and experimental work. For years, it has been more receptive than creative, widely influenced by European and US research groups. The history shows the existence of two well-defined periods, separated by the Civil War. Scholars and practitioners are now associating more and more with each other.

Psychology in Spain is going through a period of growth and expansion. Many groups at universities and other higher education centres carry out research programmes. There is also an important group of professionals who find job opportunities in public and private institutions. In spite of some difficulties in the past, today it is one of the fastest growing sectors.

Spain has been more a receptive than a creative country in the field of psychology. If we ignore the contributions made by some Renaissance intellectuals and medical doctors and concentrate instead on what has happened in contemporary times, it can be said that psychology arrived here from those centres where it was developing, in a movement fostered mostly for pragmatic and utilitarian reasons. The advantages and social values found in psychological techniques led to their acquisition and application in the service of broader social projects. It has been sometimes said that it was in fact applied psychology that brought general and experimental psychology to Spain. This, however is also true of many countries which have received an already existing and structured science, delving into it for the applications its possession gives rise to.

In the late 19th century and beginning of the 20th century, we became aware of the scientific psychology that was developing in Germany, France, Italy, the United States, and England. What seemed to start as a theoretical discipline on human subjectivity, cognitive structures, and social dimensions of personality, soon proved to be capable of providing practical applications of great importance for educators, clinicians, and even businessmen and people with social responsibilities for making good use of individuals (CARPINTERO, 1980, 1982). There is an obvious relationship between the bourgeois organization of 19th century society, industrial development, and the creation of psychological education techniques and useful organizations for those processes. Spain, in spite of being far behind the rest of European nations in industrial development, was no exception to this principle. The bourgeois founded its control on rationally-based principles of competition and competence. Knowledge of individuals and of interpersonal relations was added to the sciences of nature. Sociology, psychology, and social sciences generally have been key elements in the transformation that bourgeois society has brought about.

                           JOSÉ RAMÓN CORREAS GONZALEZ
                      
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