History and development of Sport Psychology in Latin America

The present study aimed to investigate the historical course of the sport psychology (SP) field and its development in Latin America. The keywords "history," "sport psychology," and related terms were searched for in Web of Science, ScienceDirect, LILACS, and Scielo databases, as well as Google Scholar and other manual searches to find scientific articles, book chapters, dissertations and other documents describing the history of SP in Latin American countries. Information was found for 15 Latin American countries. Drawing from the important data present in these works, the history of SP in this continent is presented in four periods that encompass its initial period (1930-1960), advancements in the applied and scientific field (1960-1980), consolidation of SP (1980-2000), and the recognition of SP (after 2000). The roots of SP in Latin America, its characteristics, factors driving its expansion and the actual state of SP are presented and discussed.