Bernard I. Murstein (1929–2020).

Abstract

Presents the obituary of Bernard I. Murstein (1929-2020). Bernard earned his BS in psychology at the City College of New York, MS in psychology at the University of Miami (where he claimed to have been inducted into Psi Chi at a poolside ceremony), and PhD in clinical psychology at the University of Texas at Austin in 1955. Bernard taught at Louisiana State University, the University of Portland, OR, and the University of Connecticut before joining the faculty of Connecticut College in 1963. He remained there until his retirement in 1999, except for a year as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Louvain in Belgium. Bernard published seven academic books, including Theories of Attraction and Love (1971), Love, Sex, and Marriage through the Ages (1974), Who Will Marry Whom? (1976), and Paths to Marriage (1986). He also published more than 130 journal articles and book chapters on psychological testing, interpersonal attraction, marital choice, sexual behavior, relationship styles, and marital adjustment. He is best known for his stimulusvalue-role theory (1970) of relationship development, which is cited in most textbooks on social psychology and intimate relationships. Bernard was elected to Fellow status in the American Psychological Association (Divisions 8, 12, and 43) and the Society for Projective Techniques. The Spanish Psychological Association named him one of the most important psychologists of the 20th century; his book Theory and Research in Projective Techniques (1963) was listed by Basic Sources of Information in the Social Sciences among the 50 most important books on psychology. He is survived by his wife Nelly Kashy Murstein, the Hanna Hakesbrink Professor Emerita of French at Connecticut College, his daughters Danielle and Collette, and three granddaughters. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).