author
Sanford Bell
A little-known early psychologist, he explored how feelings of attraction develop and tried to study love with the tools of science. His work stands out as an unusual glimpse into how researchers at the turn of the 20th century approached emotion and human development.
1 Audiobook
A Preliminary Study of the Emotion of Love between the Sexes
by Sanford Bell
About the author
Working at Clark University as a fellow, Sanford Bell wrote A Preliminary Study of the Emotion of Love between the Sexes, a study published in The American Journal of Psychology in 1902 and later circulated as a standalone text. The work is still remembered for treating love and courtship as subjects for systematic psychological study at a time when that was far from common.
Bell also wrote A Study of the Teacher's Influence, another early research piece that grew out of his teaching and questionnaire-based work. Taken together, his surviving publications suggest an author interested in how people grow, learn, and form attachments.
Not much biographical information about his personal life appears to be readily available in the sources I could confirm, so he remains a somewhat shadowy figure. Even so, his writing offers a fascinating window into the ambitions of early psychology, when scholars were beginning to turn everyday human experience into a field of formal research.