Historiography of psychology in Spain: The last decade.

Abstract

History of psychology has been an extremely active field for many years in Spain. Both the great expansion of psychological studies and the inclusion of history as a compulsory subject in the psychology curriculum are crucial factors helping to understand the current state of affairs. The aim of this paper is to provide a survey of the work done in this area over the last decade, covering research, teaching, and institutional developments. The study includes consideration of aspects such as main research lines, major theoretical and methodological trends, teaching materials, relevant archives and exhibits, and significant websites.

The history of psychology course in Spanish psychology curricula: Past, present, future.

“…The past and the present outlined here and in other studies, such as the one by Carpintero et al (2010), lead us to be moderately optimistic about the future. However, we have shown that some Spanish psychology historians are concerned about the hypothetical reduction in the length of the psychology degree and the resulting need to adapt the curricula.…”

“…In Spain, in contrast to other European countries, and as described by Carpintero et al (2010), the history of psychology as a discipline has clearly become institutionalized, not only because of its spread presence in university education, as we will analyze in this study, but also thanks to two milestones: the creation of the "Revista de Historia de la Psicología" in 1980 and the founding of the Spanish Society for the History of Psychology (SEHP) in 1988. Since its origin, the SEHP has had intense activity in the teaching, research, and dissemination of the history of psychology.…”

“…Since its origin, the SEHP has had intense activity in the teaching, research, and dissemination of the history of psychology. The Carpintero study describes other relevant aspects of the institutionalization of the discipline in Spain, among which we would like to highlight the diverse and quite productive thematic research lines that Spanish historians have been carrying out from different methodological/ theoretical movements, in addition to the preparation of numerous teaching manuals for the history of psychology and audiovisual teaching materials (Carpintero et al, 2010). This is not a unique case in Spain, where the history of medicine since the 1940s has also enjoyed a strong institutionalization and may have been an inspirational model for the institutionalization of the history of psychology, in terms of both teaching and research.…”

“…Until now, the history of psychology course in Spain has held a privileged place in the psychology curricula (Carpintero et al, 2010;Mestre, 2007). In addition, as we will see, it has been a fundamental factor in the institutionalization of research in this discipline.…”

Scientometric trend analyses of publications on the history of psychology: Is psychology becoming an unhistorical science?

“…for Spain: Carpintero et al 2010; Lafuente and Herrero 2003; for the German-speaking countries: Schui et al 2014) and related international comparisons (e.g., Bornmann et al 2012; Krampen and Montada 1998), the historiography of special topics of psychological research (e.g., Simonton 2014) and special epochs of psychology (see, e.g., Green et al 2013, 2104, 2015), scientometric contributions to evaluative topics (e.g., Krampen 2008), whereas methodological issues of scientometrics are rarely brought into focus (e.g., Krampen 2008; Simonton 2006). Thus, this is a fruitful area for research cooperation of expert scientometricians and psychologists, which can contribute to the objective to give again “history of psychology (…) an impact” (Pettit and Davidson 2014, p. 709) within psychology and in its neighboring sciences.…”