Revista Interamericana de Psicología

El Primer Congreso Virtual de la Sociedad Interamericana de Psicología 2020: Aportes de la Psicología ante la COVID-19, sin duda, fue un gran reto de organización, de la Sociedad Interamericana Psicología y Universidad Carlos Albizu. Representó, un esfuerzo, ya que implicó contar con información sobre los efectos que la pandemia del COVID-19 ha provocado, o se han manifestado hasta el momento en la salud mental y el bienestar de la población en el mundo.

Focusing on Dr. Horacio Rimoldi, a prominent member of the Interamerican Society of Psychology, this historical study describes the regular circulation of knowledge and training practices that he promoted between universities in Uruguay, the United States, Argentina and Puerto Rico between the early 1950s and 1970. The purpose of these actions was to strengthen the development of psychological science in Latin America at a time when the professionalisation of the discipline was taking place there. A considerable corpus of unpublished sources was recovered, making it possible to analyse more than 160 institutional documents and letters between academics. It describes the courses taught by Rimoldi and his attempts to organise a laboratory at the Universidad de la República de Uruguay, between 1951 and 1952. Also, between 1957 and 1969, collaborations with Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Universidad de Buenos Aires, CONICET, Universidad de Puerto Rico, Sociedad de Psicología de Puerto Rico and Universidad de Loyola are documented. Dissimilar results were achieved, depending on the complex local contexts and institutional vicissitudes. The interactions highlight processes of professionalization and the constitution of academic centres oriented towards the development of psychology as a basic, autonomous science, close to the natural sciences, which seeks university education focused on research and open to the international agenda.

Review of the book History of Psychology in Latin America. A cultural approach.

Dating or falling in love implies a romantic experience of bonding, commitment and support between the members of a couple within the framework of a socio-cultural context. This kind of relationship contributes to the psychosocial well-being providing people with socio-emotional development. However, in this dating period, many partners deal with situations of violence. The aim of current work was to analyze and to describe the presence, type and level of abuse in dating relationships in four Latin American countries. Method: the target group involved 1195 secondary, high school and university students aged 12 to 30 years from Argentina, Chile, Mexico and Peru. The Questionnaire Dating Abuse (CMN; Osorio-Guzmán, 2014), which contains 5 areas and α = 0.95, was applied. The study met the ethical standards of the American Psychological Association. Results: the proportion of participants was Argentina (22.9%), Chile (25.3%), Mexico (36.9%) and Peru (15%). The reliability of the instrument ranges from .93 to .95. It was found that more than 90% of the cases report low levels of abuse, and 21.5% reported family violence patterns. Conclusions: the naturalization of dating violence is verified, and it is considered essential to work on its denaturalization.

Psychology in Latin America, its development, and main contributors have not received the attention they deserve among the scientific and professional English-speaking communities. The present study analyzes the contributions to psychology in Latin America made by the recipients of the Interamerican Psychology award in the Spanish or Portuguese category, granted by the Interamerican Society of Psychology. The award, instituted in 1976 and named Rogelio Díaz Guerrero since 2007, recognizes psychologists who have advanced the discipline as a science and profession in the Americas. To date, SIP has granted 26 such awards. This qualitative study identifies commonalities and singularities in the contributions made by the first 26 awardees. The commonalities were organized around three overlapping themes: social responsiveness, intersectionality of psychology and culture, and international engagement. The singularities were systematized into two overlapping themes: development of historically underdeveloped topics, and discipline transformations. Each theme is defined and illustrated accordingly. The commitment to advancing social justice and increasing the relevance of psychology in addressing social issues by the awardees as a whole stands out as an important characteristic of psychology in Latin America.