José María Cagigal and the International Foundations of Sport Psychology
Cei and Serpa explore José María Cagigal’s contribution to the international institutions of sport psychology.
Scientific disciplines have histories that are not fully captured by their textbooks. They also have organisers, educators and institution-builders whose work made international exchange possible. José María Cagigal belongs in that second history of sport psychology.
In 2018, Alberto Cei and Sidónio Serpa examined Cagigal's legacy in the International Journal of Sport Psychology. Their historical article places the Spanish scholar within the networks that helped transform psychological questions about sport into an international academic field.
Before there was an international community
According to the published abstract, a discussion at the 1963 Congress of the Latin Group of Sports Medicine in Barcelona brought together Ferruccio Antonelli, Michel Bouet, José Ferrer Hombravella and Cagigal. They considered the possibility of a worldwide congress devoted to sport psychology. The discussion belongs to a formative period in which professional relationships and organisational ambitions were still taking shape.
In 1965, Ferrer Hombravella became general secretary of the first managing council of the International Society of Sport Psychology. Cagigal later organised the society's third congress in Madrid in 1973, drawing participation from different international regions, including Eastern Europe and North America.
Those dates are more than historical markers. They show a movement from conversation to organisation and from organisation to events that could connect researchers across national borders.
An educational vision alongside sporting performance
Cagigal's work also extended to physical education. He helped establish Spain's National Institute of Physical Education (INEF) in Madrid and served as its first director. From 1968 to 1983, he was president of the International Association of Higher Schools of Physical Education (AIESEP).
This broader involvement complicates a narrow account of sport psychology as a discipline concerned only with elite athletes. Education, institutional training and international professional cooperation were part of the landscape in which the field developed.
Why Cei and Serpa's account is worth reading
The 2018 publication contributes a historical record that links individual leadership with developments in sport psychology's international structures. It is not an experimental study, and readers should not expect it to offer evidence for a modern training technique. Its subject is the formation of the conditions in which scholarship could flourish.
The article was subsequently referenced in a historical study of relationships between Iberian countries in the development of sport psychology. That citation indicates its place in later historical scholarship.
Remembering Cagigal does not require turning one person into the sole architect of a discipline. It means recognising that research communities grow through meetings, educational institutions and sustained cooperation as well as through published theories.
The people who built the discipline
An international field does not arise through publications alone. Meetings, teaching institutions and personal cooperation create the channels through which research can travel. Cei and Serpa's historical account of José María Cagigal draws attention to precisely this institutional work at a formative moment for sport psychology.
The 1963 Barcelona discussion about an international congress illustrates how an idea could begin within a network of researchers and educators before acquiring a formal organisation. Later international meetings and Cagigal's activity in physical education show that the emerging discipline belonged to a wider educational and cultural world as well as to high-performance sport.
Historical studies such as this should be judged according to documentary scholarship, not by searching for intervention effects that they never attempted to measure. Their contribution is to identify connections, events and responsibilities that explain how later research communities became possible.
The educational dimension of Cagigal's legacy
Cagigal's influence is difficult to understand if sport psychology is viewed exclusively through the lens of elite competition. His involvement in physical education institutions places his work within a broader understanding of sport as an educational and social practice. Training future educators and developing international professional connections were part of the environment in which specialist psychological research could expand.
The historical significance of the meetings described by Cei and Serpa lies in how they connected people working in different national settings. At the time, the idea of a worldwide congress required agreement and organisation. Subsequent congresses created occasions for researchers to exchange perspectives and contribute to an emerging discipline. These developments were collective achievements even when particular individuals played prominent roles.
A carefully written historical feature should therefore avoid the temptation to turn the story into a celebration of one founding hero. It can recognise the responsibilities and achievements attributed to Cagigal while situating them among collaborators, institutions and wider educational developments. That approach makes the narrative more informative and more faithful to the character of historical scholarship.
The later citation of Cei and Serpa's paper in historical literature helps establish its scholarly reception. It remains important to distinguish that reception from proof of a unique interpretation. Historical accounts are strengthened by documentary specificity, comparison with other sources and an awareness that no single paper can exhaust the history of an international field.
Where This Research Has Been Cited and Discussed
Original journal: International Journal of Sport Psychology, 49(3), 256–266 (2018), Alberto Cei and Sidónio Serpa.
- Later historical scholarship — Cuadernos de Psicología del Deporte. Historia de la Relación entre los Países Ibéricos en el Desarrollo de la Psicología del Deporte (1950–2017) includes the Cei–Serpa 2018 paper in its references, documenting subsequent use of their historical account. This is a historiographical citation, not an experimental replication.
An independent book-level citation has not yet been verified for this specific paper.
Research References
- Alberto Cei and Sidónio Serpa (2018). Original scholarly publication.
- Historia de la Relación entre los Países Ibéricos en el Desarrollo de la Psicología del Deporte (1950–2017), Cuadernos de Psicología del Deporte. References Cei and Serpa (2018), José Maria Cagigal: The Legacy of a Pioneer of Sport Psychology.