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Ruben is a Colombian psychologist who was born on July 7, 1942 in Santander -
He lived in Pereira where he grew up and did his first studies. Since he was in high school, Rubén was interested in human behavior and discovered psychology in one of the books of Stefan Zweig. Since that moment he wanted deeper into psychology.
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He traveled to Bogotá to enter the National University of Colombia (it was the only university that offered a career of psychology), He wanted to convert psychology into a science and profession within Colombia. -
Rubén's friends thought that he was the father of psychology in Colombia.
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When he was 19 he published his first novel titled "Nefertiti" in 1964, it's about the origin of life and the relationship between science and religion. With his novel he won a literary award in Spain, thanks to which he traveled to Europe for the first time. -
Ruben traveled to the old continent and the Middle East, then he traveled to Lincoln, United States to the University of Nebraska to do his doctorate in experimental psychology, in those years he also wrote the book of learning psychology.
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On January 15, 1969, Ardila published volume 1 of the Latin American Journal of Psychology, the most important in all Latin America.
Then He published 200 articles and 27 books on the influence of early experiences on animal behavior, behavioral evolution, child-rearing patterns, the psychological impact of nuclear war, and the effects of unemployment. -
In 1970 he returned to Colombia and became a teacher and investigator at the university of the Andes and at the university Santo Tomás, where he achieved several changes in his career. -
Rubén published Psychology of the Colombian man: culture and social behavior in 1986, in his book he spoke about the behavior of Colombians based on intrinsic and extrinsic factors -
the most important achievement for Rubén was the creation of his book "Experimental Synthesis of Behavior", published on 1988. He proposed the subjective and objective realities of human behavior as domains in psychology. -
In 2003 some colleagues wrote a book about the contributions of Rubén, the book is called "the legacy of Rubén Ardila, psychology: of biology and culture" -
In recent years Rubén published a book named "History of Psychology in Colombia", in 2021 he announced that he would publish other book named "correspondence of eminent psychologists". where he exchanges letters with several psychologists from other countries like Skinner and Piaget.