Methods and measures in developmental emotions research: Some assembly required

The remarkable contributors to this special issue highlight the importance of developmental research on emotion and its regulation, as well as its conceptual and methodological challenges. This commentary offers some additional thoughts, especially concerning alternative views of the convergence of multiple measures of emotional responding, the conceptualization of emotion and emotion regulation, and future directions for work in this field. In the end, in light of the complex construction of emotion and its development, we may learn from studying the divergence among multiple components of emotional responding as we do from expectations of their convergence. In each case, some assembly is required.

► Strong convergence of multiple emotion measures may or may not be reasonable to expect in light of current views of emotion. ► Future studies should examine the reasons for divergence between multiple methods of emotion and emotion regulation. ► Views of emotion and emotion regulation, often implicit, guide measurement approaches – and sometimes bear reexamination. ► The associations between measures of emotion are likely to change developmentally and to be contextually guided.