Trends and developments: research on emotions Courants et tendances: recherche sur les émotions

What are emotions? And how can they be measured? Abstract. Defining ‘‘emotion’ ’ is a notorious problem. Without consensual conceptualization and operationalization of exactly what phenomenon is to be studied, progress in theory and research is difficult to achieve and fruitless debates are likely to proliferate. A particularly unfortunate example is William James’s asking the question ‘‘What is an emotion?’ ’ when he really meant ‘‘feeling’’, a misnomer that started a debate which is still ongoing, more than a century later. This contribution attempts to sensitize researchers in the social and behavioral sciences to the importance of definitional issues and their consequences for distinguishing related but fundamentally different affective processes, states, and traits. Links between scientific and folk concepts of emotion are explored and ways to measure emotion and its components are discussed. Key words. Affective processes – Emotion – Feeling – Folk concepts of emotion – Measurement of emotion – Scientific concepts of emotion Résumé. Définir les emotions est un problème bien connu. Sans consensus quant a ̀ la conceptualisation et l’opérationnalisation du phénomène exact que l’on étudie, tout The elaboration of the design feature definition of different affective phenomena has been con-ducted as part of the HUMAINE Network of Excellence (6th European Framework). The development of the Geneva Emotion Wheel was supported by a grant from the Daimler-Benz Foundation. The development of the Geneva Affect Label Coder was supported by th