Marshall Segall Named Honorary Fellow

Marshall Segall was names as an Honorary Fellow of IACCP at the 2010 Melbourne, Australia Congress.  Marshall was not able to travel to Australian to accept his honor. The text of his citation follows:

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Marshall Howard Segall is a pioneer in the study of the relationship between culture and behavior.  As a student at NorthwesternUniversity, Marshall came to understand that human behavior could only be examined and understood in its cultural context. Following a year at the University of Geneva, where he was influenced by Jean Piaget. Marshall began his graduate study at Yale University, where he was further influenced by Leonard Doob. He then returned to Northwestern, where he began a long and close relationship with Donald Campbell, with whom he completed his doctorate in 1957.

While there, along with Melville Herskovits, they carried out the seminal (and classic) study ‚ÄúThe Influence of Culture on Visual Perception‚Äù published in 1966. This study established that a basic perceptual function  is universal, but that the degree of illusion susceptibility varies according to ecological and cultural contexts and experiences. Marshall then went to Columbia University where he was further influenced by Otto Klineberg. There followed a long and illustrious career at Syracuse University, where Marshall became Director of the Program in East African Studies, as well as Professor in Psychology and in Political Science.

Among his works dealing with Africa, he produced a film on cultural change in Uganda (‚ÄúGentle Winds of Change: Uganda‚Äù; 1961), and a book ‚ÄúPolitical Identity: A Case Study from Uganda‚Äù (1976).   Marshall has had a long standing concern with broader issues in society, leading him to author books on ‚ÄúHuman behavior and public policy‚Äù (1976), and co-author ‚ÄúAggression in Global Perspective‚Äù (1982).

Marshall has been a fundamental contributor to establishing and interpreting the relationship between culture and behaviour.  His book ‚ÄúCross-Cultural Psychology: Human Behavior in Global Perspective‚Äù (1979) was the first to attempt at a synthesis of knowledge of these relationships. This was followed by a number of textbooks with colleagues between 1990 and 2002. 

These multiple experiences, both scientific and personal, combined with his intense concern for social justice and equity, brought him to his current commitment to the examination of the concept of “race” in contemporary societies. His work developing and propagating the project “All of Us Are Related, Each of Us is Unique” has become his passion.

Marshall has served as President of IACCP and as a consulting editor of JCCP from 1982 to the mid nineties. His past and continuing contributions to the field of cross-cultural psychology and to the goals of the Association make him a worthy recipient of an Honorary Fellowship.

Text written by John Berry