International Journal of Hispanic Psychology ISSN: 1939-5841 Volume 4, Number 2 © 2012 Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

BEHAVIORISM IN MEXICO:

A HISTORICAL CHRONICLE

Emilio Ribes-liiesta­Universidad Veracruzana, Mexico

ABSTRACT

A chronicle on the history of behaviorism in Mexico is presented. The chronicle covers 50 years, divided in five periods involving the incubation, the foundation, the consolidation, the critical reflection, and the disintegration of behaviorism as a collective movement.

Keywords: behaviorism, Mexico, behavior analysis, history

INTRODUCTION

Behaviorism in Mexico began less than fifty years ago. Recent events will be described as a chronicle rather than as a historical account, especially when the narrator still is an active participant in the events being recounted. This chronicle, like any other narration or report, is not completely impartial or "objective". It is impossible to distance one self from personal biases in choosing and appraising the episodes and achievements that make up the story.

The history of behaviorism in Mexico, as in other countries, is interlocked with the academic life of universities. Behaviorism formally emerged at the beginnings of last century (Watson, 1913) as a foundational proposal for a true science of psychology. Psychology, itself, emerged as an academic discipline related to philosophy, evolutionary biology, and medically-conceived pathology. As a result, it has always been linked to theoretical, research and technical developments originated by groups of scholars in universities. In the case of behaviorist psychology (as equivalent to behaviorism in this paper), even social applications were initially developed in the context of universities' research and demonstration projects (Baer, Wolff and Risley, 1968).

This chronicle is divided into five periods: (a) incubation, (b) foundation and integration, (c) consolidation and extension, (d) critical appraisal, and (e) disintegration. Each period involves different stages of development and expansion of behaviorism in Mexico, some of them, parallel with those taking place in other countries. The structure of this historical

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account is based on six guidelines: the epistemic identity of psychology, the logical coherence of theoretical categories and concepts, the applicability of scientific methods and findings, the social justification of the application of scientific knowledge as technology, the pertinence of psychological knowledge to educational reform, and the relevance of scientific tradition in research. At the end of this chronicle, a relevant bibliography is provided, additionally to specific references.

The Incubation Period

The incubation period took place between 1961 and 1965, at the National University of Mexico (UNAM) and the University of Veracruz at Xalapa (UV). Although courses in psychology had been offered from many years at UNAM, not until 1960 a license in psychology was formally approved, as a professional degree, that involved university studies concentrated on psychological courses and "related" disciplines. In contrast to Anglo-Saxon countries, in Mexico university degrees follow the French Napoleonic tradition 1. Nonetheless, in spite the new formal organization, psychological studies were far from being coherent, systematic, or integrated.

The UNAM four-year curriculum was made up of a diversity of content courses, without laboratories, including neuroanatomy, psychophysiology, endocrinology, general psychology, history of psychology, methodology, deep psychology, abnormal and pathological psychology, social psychology, elementary statistics, experimental psychology, psychology of personality, mental hygiene, psychology of art, clinical psychology, and psychometrics. Courses were offered by all kinds of specialists, excepting psychologists: physicians, physiologists, educators, psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, engineers, economists, Tomistic­oriented philosophers, and lawyers. This circumstance, added to the pre-paradigmatic condition of psychology, only promoted confusion and disorientation.

The search for a scientific psychology based on experimental research became the leit­motiv of that period. Between 1961 and 1963, a group of students, named the Galileo Galilei Group, organized itself to promote a radical change in the Psychology School of UNAM. The group was formed by Victor M. Alcaraz, Lauro Bonilla, Luis Duarte, Antonio Gago, Serafin Mercado, Emilio Ribes and Renato Ravelo. It was motivated by some peripheral knowledge about experimental psychology, learned in some of their biological courses, and a brief historical account of experimental psychology from H. E. Garrett's book (1951). Among the faculty members who stimulated their interest in experimental psychology were Carlos Bayer, Alberto Cuevas, Guillermo Davila, Rogelio Dfaz Guerrero, Luis Domenge, and Augusto Fernandez Guardiola.

The group concentrated efforts in two directions. On the one hand, they dedicated themselves for more than a year to formulating a plan to be presented to the President of UNAM, to transforn1 the university curriculum into one that emphasized experimental psychology and practicum supervision, and found an institute devoted to psychological research. On the other hand, the group with other students (Javier Aguilar, Victor Coloda and

1 After completing six years of secondary school, university studies in all disciplines (scientific, applied or artistic) are offered as professional degrees involving a 4 to 6-year curriculum. The professional degree allows for the practice of psychology (or any other discipline as profession). Master and doctoral degrees follow as specialties and/or academic research degrees after completion of 2- to 4-year programs.

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Aorente L6pez among them) organized a seminar on learning theory, in order to compensate, through self-education, the lack of training in scientific psychology. The seminar concentrated on Ernest Hilgard's Theories of Learning (1956), translated in that time to Spanish by Fondo de Cultura Economica in Mexico, thanks to the efforts of Serafin Mercado.

A study on cultural differences in children concept formation served to introduce some of the Galileo Galilei Group into the practice of experimental research. Cosponsored by Rogelio Diaz Guerrero (UNAM), the project was directed by Riley W. Gardner at the Menninger Foundation (Topeka, Kansas) and was part of an extensive program exploring individual differences in cognitive styles. Serafin Mercado, Emilio Ribes, and others participated in a study at Guadalajara in 1962, exploring category width in elementary school children, as part of Mercado's professional thesis. Later on, Riley Gardner was the thesis advisor of Emilio Ribes' thesis on field articulation.

In 1962, the reform project was presented to Ignacio Chavez, the distinguished cardiologist and President of UNAM. The proposed curriculum included both the professional and doctoral degrees, and was based on the analysis of such programs at leading universities as Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Stanford, among others: The process of formulating the project was extremely beneficial and enriching for the group as a learning experience about the fields of scientific psychology.

The project was praised by Ignacio Chavez, but he correctly pointed out that without a strong faculty, it could not be successfully implemented. This tum of events strengthened even more the group's conviction about the need for self-education to overcome the academic deficit of Mexican psychology. The first stage of this process concluded with a group of young psychologists, firmly convinced about the possibility of building a scientific psychology based on experimental research, as had occurred in other disciplines.

The opportunity to develop such a project took place in between 1963 and 1964. Victor Alcaraz, one of the group's members, was appointed in May 1963 to work at Xalapa as psychologist in the recently created Behavior Clinic of the University of Veracruz and in the Mental Health Service of the Gast6n Melo Health Service. Additionally, he was to teach psychology courses for education students enrolled in a Master's program in Education (equivalent to a B.A.) at the University of Veracruz in the School of Education, Philosophy and Letters.

In January 1964, Antonio Gago and Emilio Ribes joined him, both as psychologists in the Behavior Clinic and instructors in the Education program. During 1964, Victor Alcaraz and Emilio Ribes persuaded Rafael Velasco, the Dean of the School, about the need to create a professional program in psychology, while at the same time, they were working on its curriculum design. Given a series of positive changes, the academic proposal was approved by the University Council and, in January 1965, the University of Veracruz began offering (as the only alternative program to UNAM) a five-year professional program in psychology, moving the program to the Department of Sciences along with Physics, Mathematics and Biology.

The Foundation and Integration Period

The foundation and integration period took place between 1965 and 1968 at the University of Veracruz in Xalapa. Some outstanding achievements took place in this period:

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(a) the constitution of a group of young psychologists interested in experimental research, (b) the offering of behaviorally-oriented courses for the first time in a Spanish-speaking country, (c) the culmination of a successful process of self-education by the new group at Xalapa, (d) the internationalization of Mexican psychology through the visits of outstanding foreigner scholars, and (e) the beginning of a influential period of the psychology program relative to other programs in Mexico and Latin-America.

Although the psychology program at Xalapa has been traditionally considered as a behaviorist one, this is not correct: initially it included the different views of its staff, that is, Skinner's behaviorism, Hull-Spence and Mowrer' behaviorism, Pavlov and Luria's points of view, Piaget's developmental perspective, psychometric analysis, and cognitively oriented theories of perception and thinking. The Xalapa Group, as it became known, was formed during this period by Javier Aguilar, Victor Alcaraz, Arturo Bouzas, Gustavo Fernandez, Jose Huerta, Florente Lopez, Marfa Antonieta Maldonado, Serafin Mercado, Francisco Montes, and Emilio Ribes. Antonio Gago went back to Mexico City. In following periods the group changed in composition, with drop outs and new incorporations, which will be mentioned in context.

Behaviorally-oriented courses involved both Skinner's and Hull-Spence's traditions, and focused mainly on the areas of introductory psychology, learning and memory, motivation, thinking and language, and the fields of educational and clinical psychology. During this period, the Skinnerian viewpoint represented a minority, and the "hard-core" courses (Learning, Motivation) were based upon the contributions of Hull, Logan, Mowrer, Pavlov and Spence, as fundamental sources. These courses were not only behavioral in content, but also in pedagogy. From 1967, the personalized instruction system, originally designed by Fred Keller (1968), and modified by Ferster (1968), was initially introduced by Francisco Montes as a teaching procedure in the introductory psychology and, afterwards, in learning and motivation courses by other teachers. The PSI system included tutorial assessment, short study units, and multiple evaluations involving laboratory reports, oral presentations and writing essays. Two years later, the Monterrey Technological Institute implemented the PSI system, claiming a pioneer role in the educational innovation of college and university teaching, which in fact corresponded to the Xalapa program.

The development of the new psychology program at Xalapa demanded a special effort from each one of the members of the group. Lacking of training in experimental psychology and its applications, the Xalapa Group had to decide in favor of complementing their professional competence through specialization and self-education. If Ryle's (1969) analysis of thinking is correct, this period not only enhanced the knowledge of the group regarding the crucial areas of experimental psychology, but also fostered the development of thoughtful knowledge. This meant not only catching up with the state of the art in each area of psychological knowledge, but also to carry out experimental studies (Mercado, Ribes and Barrera, 1967; Ribes and Lopez, 1967) and laboratory demonstrations for students. As an example of this disposition, in 1966, I made the first demonstration of shaping a rat to press the lever in a house-made Skinner box (given by the University of Texas) with the students enrolled in the Learning course, being that occasion the first time I was exposed also to a rat and a Skinner box! The strong motivation and commitment of the group to stay up to date with the state of the art in behavior theory and experimental psychology was acknowledged by O.H. Mowrer in his visit to Xalapa in 1967: The faculty at the Department of Psychology was fully informed about theoretical and empirical advances in experimental psychology. In a

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Behaviorism in Mexico

four-year period, the Xalapa Group had closed a 40-year gap of scientific information on

psychology. In 1966, the Xalapa program began its internationalization. This took place in two ways.

The first was through visiting professors. The second was by initiating a process of academic formation in which different members of the group moved to foreign universities in order to obtain master's and doctoral degrees. The first visitor was Eliot Aronson, a distinguished social psychologist from the University of Texas, who gave two lectures. This was as an extension to his stay at UNAM, where he was invited by a multidisciplinary group of social scientists. However, the visit of O.H. Mowrer from the University of Illinois, in August 1966, marked the beginning of the internationalization of the Xalapa program. Mowrer was one of the most prominent learning theorists at the time, part of the scientific group originally leaded by Clark Hull at Yale University during the 1940's.

At the time, Mowrer was fully dedicated to a critique of behavior therapy, proposing an alternative to it called "Integrity therapy". Mowrer gave three lectures on the topic and, for first time in Mexico, psychologists and students from Mexico City attended an academic meeting outside UNAM. This event initiated a tradition that took place on the next several years, making Xalapa a prominent center for scholarship in psychology. During 1967, the visit of distinguished researchers continued: Sidney W. Bijou (University of Illinois), Teodoro Ayllon (Anna State Hospital), Harry Harlow (University of Wisconsin), and D. E. Berlyne (University of Toronto).

The importance of Xalapa as the center of scientific psychology in Mexico culminated with the First Mexican Congress of Psychology, cosponsored by the Mexican Psychological Society and the University ofVeracmz.

This event confirmed the birth of a modern psychology in Mexico, experimentally oriented, promoted by the new developments at the University of Veracmz. While UNAM established a new psychology curriculum, similar to the one developed at Xalapa in 1965, the U ni versity of Veracmz was actually implementing a new curriculum, with more intensive laboratory work, the development of applied centers, and a upper level concentration on behavior intervention or psychometric assessment methodologies. In 1967, some of the members of this group moved to foreign universities to obtain advanced degrees and to strengthen their academic and research abilities.

This was the case for Serafin Mercado (University of Texas), Gustavo Fernandez (University of Texas), and Emilio Ribes (University of Toronto). Regrettably, at the end of this process which involved other members of the staff, only Florente Lopez and Emilio Ribes returned to Xalapa. The rest were appointed by UNAM or stayed abroad.

Starke Hathaway, a distinguished clinical psychologist, creator of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, visited Xalapa in 1966 and recommended to Editorial Trillas, a strong publishing company in Mexico, to develop a specialized collection in psychology, with the advice both of Rogelio Diaz Guerrero and the Xalapa Group.

This group made possible the translation and publication of an important number of books on experimental psychology, which became instmmental in changing psychology programs in all Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries.

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The Consolidation and Extension Period (1968-1975)

This period involves the consolidation of behavioral psychology at Xalapa for a brief period, and its extension to new programs developed at UNAM. During this time other important events took place outside the universities (e.g., scientific meetings, new journals, new scientific associations). This period is usually, but incorrectly, alluded to as the "behaviorist period of Mexican psychology." It is not correct because behaviorism in Mexico, as in any other place, has always been a minority within the minority. Nevertheless, behavioral programs were, undoubtedly, the most productive and innovative in psychology during this period.

The program in Xalapa had new developments. Continuing the efforts of Florente Lopez and Francisco Barrera in establishing a child behavior laboratory patterned after Sidney Bijou's model, the Center for Training and Special Education (CTSE) was consolidated in 1969. It was located in the basement of the Pediatric Hospital of Xalapa. The CTSE assisted 30 children who had a variety of severe and intermediate problems of behavioral development. The CTSE fulfilled three functions: (a) to provide a facility for training the professional degree students in behavioral intervention techniques, (b) to advance research projects on human behavior and applied behavior analysis, and (c) to serve the community through special education and rehabilitation programs. In the next two years, clinical, educational, ecological, and day-care new programs were to serve the same purposes. The CTSE was also crucial for the operation of the M.A. program in Behavior Modification at Xalapa, which began in January 1969, with two students previously at UNAM. After completing their master degree at Xalapa, Jorge Peralta and Benjamin Dominguez were appointed as faculty members, by the University of Veracruz and UNAM, respectively.

The Master program in behavior modification at Xalapa was the first graduate program in this field in a non-English speaking country. The program lasted only four years due to extra­academic reasons. Students came from different locations in Mexico, most of them from UNAM, but also from Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica and US. The basic faculty was formed by Emilio Ribes, Florente Lopez (then returned from SIU), Andree Fleming-Holland (an Arizona State University graduate), Jay Powell (a Southern Illinois University graduate), and Larry Doke (a University of Kansas graduate). The M.A. program not only included seminars and supervised training and research, but also brief courses and tutorials offered by visiting professors, among them, Sidney Bijou (twice), Jay Birnbrauer, John Burchard, David Ehrenfreund, Charles Ferster (twice), William Montague, Gerald Patterson, Todd Risley, Robert Schwitzgebel, Richard Suinn, and Keith Van Wagenen.

In January 1971, Sidney Bijou and Emilio Ribes organized the First International Symposium on Behavior Modification at Xalapa. It was the first of a series of eleven symposia in Latin America between 1971 and 1981, held at different sites: Mexico City (1972, 1973, 1974 and 1978), Panama City, Caracas, Bogota, Lima, and Riberao Preto. The Honorary Chairman of the first symposium was B.F. Skinner, who could not attend due to a health problem. The other participants were Teodoro Ayllon, Sidney Bijou, Rodolpho Carbonari, Harold Cohen, Benjamin Dominguez, Charles Ferster, Robert O'Leary, Jorge Peralta, Jay Powell, Emilio Ribes, Robert Wahler, and Montrose Wolf. A volume of the presentations of this symposium, Behavior Modification: Issues and Extensions, was published in Spanish (Trillas) and English (Academic Press) under the coeditorship of Sidney Bijou and Emilio Ribes. Some of the later symposia were also published in one or both

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languages by Trillas and Academic Press or L. Erlbaum. The first symposium was attended by more than 1000 professionals and students coming from allover Latin America, and was the beginning of further exchanges between Mexican, US and Canadian behaviorist scholars.

In 1972, Emilio Ribes published the first original book on behavior modification, written in a language other than English, based upon the concepts, techniques and programs developed at the CTSE (Tecnicas de Modificaci6n de Conducta: su aplicaci6n al retardo en el desarrollo, Editorial Trillas). The book is still being reprinted today and used in university courses in Mexico and Latin America.

Between September 1971 and 1973 most of the faculty at Xalapa moved to UNAM (Victor Alcaraz, Roberto Alvarado, Carlos Fernandez Gaos, Florente Lopez. Jesus Nieto, Jorge Peralta, Emilio Ribes, and Paulo Speller). Other faculty went back to US (e.g., Jay Powell and Larry Doke), while previous faculty at Xalapa had alredy joined UNAM (Javier Aguilar, Arturo Bouzas, Gustavo Fernandez, Jose Huerta, Serafin Mercado, and Francisco Montes); Arturo Bouzas continued his graduate studies in the US. A group of new professors, however, continued many of the behavioral programs until 1977, namely, Victor Arredondo, Jose Enrique Dfaz Camacho, Maribel Gonzalez, Elias Robles, and Wilfredo Salas. During the 1990's and into the first years of the new century, the Psychology and Education Institute was the only place where behavioral programs were taught and applied, mostly in the field of special education. Still, two important events took place in Xalapa in 1974 and 1975. In 1974, as an original idea of Enrique Diaz Camacho, the First Mexican Congress on Behavior Analysis was held, jointly sponsored by the University of Veracruz, UNAM, and the University of San Luis Potosi. J.R. Kantor was the Honorary Chairman of the meeting; Donald Baer, Sidney Bijou, and Herbert Jenkins were invited speakers. In 1975, Victor Arredondo and Elias Robles organized a Meeting on Instructional Techniques in Higher Education, with the participation of Dale Brethower, Fred Keller, Richard Malott, Jack Michael, Ernest Vargas, and Julie Vargas as foreign speakers. Both events were published in separate volumes by Editorial Trillas.

From 1966-1967, due to the influence of the program at Xalapa, a group of students (the PSI Group), encouraged by Luis Lara Tapia, continued the efforts initiated by the Galileo Galilei Group to introduce experimental psychology and behaviorally-oriented courses in the program at UNAM. Hector Ayala, Jorge Molina, and Juan Jose Sanchez Sosa were among the students then. In 1969, the psychology program was affected by an institutional transition because as a section of the School of Philosophy and Letters, became a semi-autonomous school until 1973, giving birth, then, to an independent School of Psychology. During this transition, new courses in experimental psychology and behavior analysis were offered, including a M.A. program in Experimental Analysis of Behavior (1971), created by Luis Lara Tapia, with the collaboration of Carlos Bruner and Benjamin Dominguez, both graduates at the M.A. program in Xalapa, and Gustavo Fernandez. Also, in the course of 1971, Emilio Ribes and Florente Lopez moved from Xalapa to UNAM. During the next months, their leadership was substantial for the creation of two experimental groups in the professional program. One of them, supervised by Emilio Ribes, offered special seminars, tutorships and an extensive applied and research program in a day care center. As an outcome of this pilot program, 14 students graduated with experimental dissertations on generalized imitation.

In 1973, Luis Lara Tapia was elected the first Dean of the new School of Psychology at UNAM, and appointed Emilio Ribes to chair and reform the graduate program on the experimental analysis of behavior. The program, which was originally mainly "theoretical",

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was radically changed to a semi-tutorial program, based on supervised basic and applied research with animals and humans, and supervised readings and research seminars. To attain these goals, an operant conditioning laboratory with electromechanical and solid state equipment was set up in two rented buildings, outside UNAM campus, in the southern borough of Coyoacan. One of them was where Heman Cortes' horse stables, conqueror of Mexico, were located. The operant conditioning laboratory was set up with the invaluable assistance of William (Nat) Schoenfeld and Brett K. Cole, who were visiting the program by first time. Nat Schoenfeld became a frequent visitor of UNAM programs, first at Coyoacan and afterward at Iztacala. The offices, seminar facilities and labs allowed for complete academic autonomy of the program from the hazards of the main campus (strikes, demonstrations, etc.). The faculty of this program included a permanent staff, as well as invited professors who spent one or two years at the program. This was the case of Pere Julia, Tom Lovitt, and Joao Claudio Todorov. The permanent staff included to Arturo Bouzas (a Stony Brook and Harvard Universities graduate), Victor Colotla (a Toronto and York Universities graduate), Tom Garrett a Queens College of CUNY graduate), Jaime Hermann (a University of Kansas graduate), Florente L6pez, Ely Rayek (a Illinois University graduate), and Emilio Ribes. This program incorporated students from all over Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Brazil, Panama, Chile, Venezuela, and Colombia. In 1975, it also offered a doctoral degree. At the same time, Jorge Peralta and Vicente Garcia opened a post- professional diploma on Child Development, with a behavioral orientation. Behavioral courses were also included in the graduate programs in Educational and Clinical Psychology, where Hector Ayala initiated social rehabilitation programs following the Teaching Family model developed by Montrose Wolf. Finally, the Open University System in Psychology, coordinated by Roberto Alvarado, Carlos Fernandez Gaos and Jesus Nieto, implemented the PSI system as a general teaching method for distance education.

During this period, several relevant events took place: three international symposia on behavior modification, one Latin-American meeting on behavior analysis, two Mexican meetings on Behavior Analysis, the founding of the Mexican Journal of Behavior Analysis, and the creation of the Mexican Society of Behavior Analysis. Remarkably significant was the establishing of a new professional psychology program at the north campus of UNAM in the metropolitan area of Mexico City, but this event will be examined below as the transition point into a new period of behaviorism in Mexico.

In 1972, 1973 and 1974 the second, third and fourth Intemational Symposia on Behavior Modification were held in Mexico City, sponsored by UNAM. The list of invited speakers was impressive: Giorgy Adam, Nathan Azrin, Albert Bandura, Joseph Brady, John Burchard, Don Bushell, Harold Cohen, Ralph Hefferline, Jim Holland, J. D. Keehn, Fred Keller, Tom Lovitt, Jack Michael, Neal Miller, S. Nechine, Gerald Patterson, David Phillips, John Reid, Irving Sarason, William (Nat) Schoenfeld, Robert Schwitzgebel, Gilmour Sherman, E. N. Sokolov, Roger Ulrich, and Montrose Wolf. The most relevant aspect of the Latin-American meeting on Behavior Analysis in 1975 was the participation of B. F. Skinner. In the same year, the Second Mexican Meeting on Behavior Analysis was held at San Luis PotosI, again sponsored by the same universities that supported the first one (i.e., UNAM, UV and UASLP), with William (Nat) Schoenfeld as the honorary chairman. Over the course of three years, the five most outstanding figures of behaviorism had visited Mexico: J.R. Kantor, B.F. Skinner, Fred Keller, William Schoenfeld, and Albert Bandura.

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Circumstances were mature enough to establish behavior analysis in an aSSOCIatIOn. Emilio Ribes, assisted by Francisco Cabrer, Florente Lopez, and Eli Rayek, founded the Mexican Society of Behavior Analysis in June 1975. At the time, the first issue of the Mexican Journal of Behavior Analysis was published. This was a bilingual Spanish-English scientific journal that included theoretical, experimental, and applied contributions in the field, with an international editorial board. Emilio Ribes was the founding editor. Since then, the Mexican Society for Behavior Analysis held its meeting every two years (in average), celebrating the XXI meeting in 2011, at the time the journal published its 37th volume.

In 1972, the INFONA VIT, the agency responsible of the housing program of the Mexican federal government, established a behavioral program for the design and assessment of urban housing projects. This program, which lasted a year, was probably the first contribution to the field of behavioral architecture. It was developed by Emilio Ribes and Efren Galvan.

The Critical Review Period (1975-1985)

The impact and attractiveness of operant behaviorism (also called behavior analysis) was due to its sound general theory of animal and human behavior, its powerful experimental methodology, and the extension of its knowledge and techniques to the solution of a wide variety of social problems in education, health, ecology, rehabilitation, and, apparently, social design. Operant psychology seemed to fill the historical gap between basic and applied psychology. This was the leading idea in the design of the new professional program of psychology at the Iztacala campus of UN AM in 1975.

Emilio Ribes was responsible for planning the Iztacala program, and was advised in the process during 1975 and 1976 by IR. Kantor, William (Nat) Schoenfeld and Sidney Bijou. Although established since 1975 by means of an adapted transition of the original program at the south campus of UNAM (the School of Psychology), the new program formally began in 1976. It enrolled a total of 2400 students in a four-year period, for which it was necessary to train a staff of 125 professors. The Iztacala program was conceived as a non-eclectic, coherent and congruent theoretical and methodological program. Professional goals, teaching systems, and academic contents were all behaviorally formulated. The Iztacala program was behavioral in content and in operation. Three main questions guided the design of the program: What should be the professional profile of the psychologists who graduated from Iztacala? What should the students learn? And, therefore, how should the teaching settings and training procedures be implemented?

The answer to the first question took into account the prevailing social conditions in Mexico, and the belief that human behavior evolves through complex formal and informal interactions in the social environment. The professional psychologist was conceived as an informal educator of individuals in the fields of health, instruction, labor and housing, by means of assessment, development, research, rehabilitation and planning activities. Psychology was considered a scientific discipline, which transferred its knowledge about behavior to professionals in different social fields, including end users of such services. In sum, psychology became a professional enterprise by de-professionalizing its knowledge for different end users, including non-professional individuals and groups.