José Luis Pinillos Díaz

José Luis Pinillos Díaz (1919 - 2013) was a Spanish psychologist. He spent 20 years as the psychology chair at the Complutense University of Madrid. Considered the father of contemporary Spanish psychology, Pinillos wrote a textbook, Principios de Psicología, that was once used by most introductory psychology courses in Spain.

Career[]

Early in his career, Pinillos went to Germany to work with Hans Walter Gruhle and to England to work under Hans Eysenck. He came back to Madrid in 1953, going to work for the Spanish National Research Council. In 1961, he spent a brief period at the University of Caracas, coming back to Spain later that year to take a psychology position at the University of Valencia.^[1] In 1966, he was named the psychology chair at the Complutense University of Madrid, and he retired from that post in 1986.^[2]

Pinillos is considered the father of modern Spanish psychology.^[2] He was a member of the Real Academia de Ciencias Morales y Políticas (Royal Academy of Moral and Political Sciences) and the Royal Spanish Academy.^[3] He served as vice-secretary of the Royal Spanish Academy in 1989–1990.^[4] He wrote Principios de Psicología (Principles of Psychology), which was at one time the textbook used by the majority of introductory psychology courses at Spanish universities.^[3]

In 1986, he earned a Principe de Asturias Award, and he received honorary doctorates from several Spanish universities.^[4]

References[]