José Miguel Salazar Jiménez was a prominent Venezuelan social psychologist. He was born in 1931 in Venezuela and obtained his PhD from the University of London. He helped establish the first School of Psychology in Venezuela at the Central University of Venezuela. Throughout his career, he held various leadership roles within academic and professional psychology organizations in Venezuela and Latin America. His research focused on topics like nationalism, national identity, and regionalism. He authored over 50 publications and helped write the first social psychology textbook published in Latin America. Salazar Jiménez is recognized as one of Latin America's foremost social psychologists.

1. Keywords
Salazar Jiménez, José Miguel
Born in Carúpano, Sucre State, Venezuela, on
December 16, 1931
Died in Caracas, Venezuela, on September
26, 2001
Pedro R. Rodríguez Carillo
Central University of Venezuela, Caracas,
Venezuela
Venezuela ꞏ Social psychology ꞏ National and
Latin American identity
He grew up in the state of Nueva Esparta in
Margarita Island, Venezuela. Since his adoles-
cence, he lived in the United States, where he
attended high school and studied psychology at
the University of Michigan (1949).
He returned to Venezuela during the dictator-
ship of Marcos Perez Jimenez (1952–1958), being
arrested for political reasons and deported to
England, where he pursued doctoral studies from
1954 to 1957 at the University of London, and
obtained a PhD in psychology.
In 1958, he returned to Venezuela andbecame
a professor at the School of Sociology and the
School of Social Work at the Universidad Central
de Venezuela (UCV) (Central University of
Venezuela). Later, he was part of the group of
professors who initiated activities in the first
School of Psychology in the country, at the
UCV, and was responsible for creating theChairs
of Experimental Psychology and Social Psychol-
ogy. He also contributed to the organization of the
first research groups.
In 1966, he returned to the University of
London where, a year later, he completed his
postdoctoral studies. In 1969, he was appointed
Director of the Escuela de Psicología (School of
Psychology) of the UCV,a historical period full of
conflicts, with a national political crisis and a
process of academic renewal, which marked a
milestone with the raid of the UCV in 1971, the
year that marked the end of his tenure as director
of the school. Among his most important achieve-
ments as director was the approval – at the begin-
ning of 1970 – of the new study plan that
established a basic cycle and a cycle applied by
mentions.
Professor Salazar contributed to the organiza-
tion of the so-called “11th floor group,” which was
intended to be an informal high prestige group.
The name of the group referred to the number of
the floor of the Central Library of the UCV, where
theacademicsdedicatedtoExperimentalPsychol-
ogy and Social Psychology worked. Members of
this groups were Euclides Sanchez (1940–),
Eduardo Santoro (1939), Carlos Muñoz (–
2014), Maritza Montero (1939–), and Julio
F. Villegas (1944–2016).
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A. M. Jacovilela et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Biographical Encyclopedia of Psychology in Latin America,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38726-6_627-1

2. 2 Salazar Jiménez, José Miguel
In 1976, as Head of the Departamento de
Psicología Social (Department of Social Psychol-
ogy), together with the team of professors of the
“11th-floor group” and under his editorial direc-
tion, he published the first treatise on social psy-
chology in Venezuela, which was the first book on
the subject published by Latin American psychol-
ogists, in Spanish; that same year, he created the
Master’s Program in Social Psychology, which he
directed until 1988 (Salazar et al., 1979).
He served as Director of the Instituto de
Psicología (Institute of Psychology), a UCV’s
Psychology Research Center from 1978 to 1985.
He was a member of the Academic Committee of
the Doctoral Program in Psychology at UCVafter
his retirement and until he died in 2001. He par-
ticipated as a guest professor in the “Simón Bolí-
var” Chair ofthe University of Cambridge, Great
Britain, in 2001.
In addition to his academic activity, he devel-
oped an important guild activity; in 1957, hewas
part of the group of psychologists who founded
the “Venezuelan Association of Psychologists”
being its president between 1959 and 1961. Sub-
sequently, this association was transformed into
the Colegio de Psicólogos de Venezuela (Board of
Psychologists of Venezuela), being elected as a
principal member of the Disciplinary Tribunal
(1961–1963) and consecutively its president
(1963–1964). He was a founding member of the
Asociación Latinoamericana de Psicología Social
(Latin American Association of Social Psychol-
ogy, ALAPSO) (1975–1985) and of the
Asociación Venezolana de Psicología Social
(Venezuelan Association of Social Psychology,
AVEPSO), of which he was its first President in
1975. From 1976, he held various positions in the
Interamerican Society of Psychology (SIP), where
he assumed the presidency in 1987 until 1989,
vice-president for South America of the SIP for
two consecutive periods (1981–1983 and 1983–
1985), and finally, editor of the Interamerican
Journal of Psychology of the SIP, for four
consecutive periods, from 1989 to 1997
(Recagno-Puente, 2002).
For more than 20 years, his essential concern
was to study the development of identity pro-
cesses at the national, regional, and supranational
levels. He participated in numerous presentations
at scientific events, both national and interna-
tional, and published eight books and more than
50 articles or book chapters. His line of research
revolved around nationalism, national stereo-
types, attitudinal determinants of behavior, and
identity processes at national, regional, and supra-
national levels (Latin Americanism) with more
than 75 investigations.
He was distinguished with the José María Var-
gas Order of the Central University of Venezuela
in its different classes – Francisco de Miranda
Order (1979), Francisco De Venanzi Award for
the trajectory of the University Researcher
(1990) – and also with Ignacio Martín-Baró
Award of the Latin American Association of
Social Psychology (1991), Inter-American
Award of Psychology (1993), and was the first
psychologist to receive the National Science
Award (1995), which was the most important
recognition – at the time – granted by the National
Council of Science and Technology of Venezuela
(Villegas, 2001).
José Miguel Salazar is recognized as one of
Latin America’s foremost social psychologists.
Selected Works
Salazar, J. (1983a). Bases Psicológicas del Nacionalismo
[Psychological Bases of Nationalism]. Trillas.
Salazar, J. (1983b). The Latin American and the meaning
of the category ‘Latin American’. Paper presented at
the XIX Interamerican Congress of Psychology.
Unpublished work.
Salazar, J., & Banchs, M. A. (1985). Supranacionalismo y
regionalismo [Supranationalism and Regionalism].
Universidad Central de Venezuela. Colección Mono-
gráfica del Instituto de Psicología.
Salazar, J. M., & Rodríguez, P. (1982). Actitudes y
creencias en relación con los colombianos, argentines
y españoles entre los venezolanos residents en Caracas
[Attitudes and beliefs in relation to Colombians, Argen-
tines and Spaniards among Venezuelan residents in
Caracas]. Revista de la Asociación Latinoamericana
de Psicología Social, 2(1), 3–20.
Salazar, J. M., Montero, M., Muñoz, C., Sanchez, E.,
Santoro, E., & Villegas, J. (1979). Psicología Social
[Social psychology]. Trillas

3. Salazar Jiménez, José Miguel 3
References
Recagno-Puente, I. (2002). In memoriam José Miguel
Salazar. Revista Interamericana de Psicología, 36(1–
2), 13–16.
Villegas, J. (2001). José Miguel Salazar (1931–2001).
More than a colleague, more than a researcher, more
than an academic: A great friend. Interviewed by
Marcelo Urra. Revista Latinoamericana de Psicología,
33(3), 359–362.