Mariano Yela Granizo: biography of this Spanish psychologist and philosopher

Mariano Yela is considered one of the most representative figures of the panorama of psychology in Spain during the twentieth century for being one of the promoters of it in this country, not to mention the extensive professional career developed.

This prolific psychologist since he was a child always stood out for his academic results, which allowed him to get a scholarship to train in various prestigious universities and institutions, he is widely recognized as one of the ‘institutionalizing fathers’ of experimental psychology in Spain.

Yela has been one of the precursor psychologists in Spain of scientific psychology; to the detriment of a more philosophical psychology that previously predominated.

Hard work, tenacity, rigorously and living optimistically, were the values ​​that transmitted the actions of the psychologist and professor Yela in their students and contemporary colleagues from profession. Here we will review his life trajectory through a biography of Mariano Yela, in summary format.

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Brief biography of Mariano Yela (1921-1994)

Mariano Yela Granizo was born on March 2, 1921 in a neighborhood of Madrid, in the bosom of a humble and hard-working family whose trade was metalworking.

When Yela is 13 years old, the moment occurs when he has his first contact with psychology due to some test carried out by all the students of the school in order to find children with high abilities intellectuals. This aroused a lot of interest in him, to the point of reading a book by Terman related to this topic.

In the year 1941, After having spent some extremely hard years due to the Spanish Civil War, he finished his high school studies with outstanding marks that lead him to win the extraordinary award of his promotion from the San Isidro Institute.

After graduating in Philosophy and Letters: EE. USA and europe

It is 1945 the year in which Mariano Yela finished the Bachelor of Philosophy and Letters, obtaining again the extraordinary prize of the promotion. This allows you to be awarded a scholarship to continue your academic training in the United States. There he was trained under the tutelage of Thomas V. Moore and after Thurstone. In addition, his years there allow him to soak up the most avant-garde psychometrics from the hand of Cronbach, Cattell, Gulliksen and many more.

After returning to Europe he continues to train in other countries such as England and Scotland, where he works with Burt and Thomson, experimental psychologists and subsequently, works in the Laboratory of Perception Psychology, obtaining an international award for his research.

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His return to Spain and consolidation of his career as a researcher

Yela returns to Spain with the aim of rebuilding psychology in this country, together with José Germain, Jose Luis Pinillos and Miguel Siguán, the other three great psychologists who, together with Mariano Yela, form the cast of "fathers of modern psychology" in Spain. These psychologists and researchers had the complicated mission of incorporating scientific psychology into the university. Which would be the beginning of a new profession

Yela learns during her years of research and training in foreign countries to develop an innovative style of working in psychology, characterized by rigor. This rigor consisted of properly and accurately investigate specific scientific hypotheses related to various constructs of psychology, specifying as much as possible the verbal formulations of him. It is not surprising that in 1952 he won another extraordinary award for his doctoral thesis based on the Factorial Theory of Intelligence.

He worked as an adjunct professor of cosmology and psychology at the Complutense University of Madrid between 1953 and 1957, to later obtain the Chair of General Psychology in 1957.

Regarding his private life, Mariano Yela was married and had 5 children; of which two followed in the footsteps of his father studying a Bachelor of Psychology and later developed their professional careers as psychologists and researchers.

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His most outstanding works

The most outstanding contributions of Mariano Yela to psychology, among many others, were introducing in his country the fundamentals and techniques of factor analysis, his widely known notes on psychometrics and statistics, and the creation and adaptation into Spanish of approximately 200 tests and his Theory of Intelligence.

He produced fourteen books on psychology, highlighting some such as "Studies on intelligence and language", "Psychology of the Aptitudes "," The tests, education and freedom "," The Factorial Analysis Technique "and" Introduction to the Theory of tests ". He also collaborated in other forty books and also published around two hundred and fifty works in both national and international magazines.

His extensive professional career has left an imprint on multiple areas of psychology, in addition to various epistemological reflections on methodological and conceptual problems of scientific psychology. His great philosophical, scientific and literary background moved him to investigate the most notorious problems of psychology and philosophy.

His vision of psychology was always reasoned and not dichotomized or scholastic. He always tried to rigorously treat his studies, being impartial with respect to the different currents of the psychology and philosophy, demonstrating it in his approach to the popular dichotomies of thought and the study of being humans (p. g., personalism-situationism, body-mind, cognitivism-behaviorism, genetics-environment, realism-constructivism, basic-applied research, etc.).

He rigorously drew out the relevance of each position and tried to integrate them into a common framework, based on experimental psychology.

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His career as an academic

A fundamental principle in his values ​​as a researcher, transmitted to his students for generations, consisted in starting from a theoretical base that he studied with meticulousness of the different psychological phenomena and, as a result, employing a rigorous methodology that reinforces as far as possible the positive verification of their complicity. His vision of studying the human being in all possible ways greatly promoted the development of applied psychology in Spain.

Testimonials from one of his students tell us that his style of explaining the theoretical lessons during his classes was unique and unmatched. He expressed himself in a hoarse tone, with slow gestures and, anecdotally, it was said that he was able to remove his vest without first removing his jacket while giving his master class.

Achievements and contributions to the world of research

Yela's work throughout his life was extensive and profound, whether professionally as a psychologist, academically as a professor or institutional as a precursor to the promotion of science in Spain and, therefore, in its universities.

Some tasks can be highlighted such as forerunner of the many organizations and institutions related to psychology in Spain.

• He is one of the members who founded in 1948 the Department of Experimental Psychology of the Higher Council for Scientific Research.
• In 1952 he was one of the organizers of the Spanish Psychology Society.
• He also belonged to the group of organizing members of the National Institute of Psychology and Psychotechnics.
• In 1952 he helped promote the first training center in his country, the School of Psychology and Psychotechnics of the University of Madrid.
• Together with Jose Luis Pinillos he was part of the creation of an organization that promoted the inclusion of a new specialty in Psychology for the Degree in Philosophy and Letters at the Complutense University of Madrid.
• In 1973, when psychology was incorporated into the Faculty of Philosophy and Educational Sciences, Mariano Yela was also present.
• He was, too, in 1975, when the first 5-year college degree study plan was created.
• In 1980 he was part of the psychology professionals who transformed the Somosaguas Psychology Section into the first Spanish School of Psychology.
• In Somosaguas he created the Department of Experimental Psychology, of which he became director.
• He also headed the Department of Behavioral Sciences Methodology until he retired in 1987; The same year in which he was appointed Emeritus Professor at the Complutense University of Madrid.

In the field of work and organizational psychology, he was the organizer of psychology departments in many companies and in various administrations. In addition, in 1955 he was one of the promoters of the creation of the Society for Studies and Assessments; today known as Associated Technical Specialists (TEA). Between the 50s and 70s he carried out numerous tasks in the area of ​​human resources (RR. HH.), Such as orientation, selection tests and staff training, among others.

In the area of ​​educational psychology and school guidance he also did some work and also published articles related to this field.

With regard to clinical psychology, although it had a shorter trajectory, it is recognized as one of the forerunners in Europe of Carl Rogers' psychotherapy.