Marshall H. Segall, arguably one of the most influential American contributors to cross-cultural psychology as a discipline, was born in Bridgeport, CT in 1930. While attending Northwestern University, he was introduced to psychology as the science of human behavior. Even as a young undergraduate, he admittedly did not understand how any science of human behavior could be complete without “attending to the cultural context in which all humans behave“. After completing his undergraduate degree, Segall visited the experimental laboratories at the University of Iowa, where he discovered that a strict behaviorist approach was not the kind of psychology that interested him. He instead went to Europe to study at the University of Geneva for one year, an experience that solidified his growing belief that culture was an integral determinant of behavior. Upon returning to the United States, he completed a master's degree at Yale University. Although the psychology department there was largely laboratory-oriented, it was housed within the Institute of Human Relations, which included anthropologists, sociologists, and psychologists, and many projects conducted there had a cultural bent. Keywords: cross-cultural psychology; race; senses; perception