The Developing Brain as Historical Artifact

This commentary critically assesses the importance and limitations of bioconstructionist research on emotional development within the discipline of psychology, broadly conceived, finding that it depends upon theories and methodologies concerning the study of culture that the humanities can provide. The established field of the history of emotions is introduced as a means of complicating bioconstruction by highlighting the contingency of the world in which emotional development takes place. Once the developing brain–body is understood to be historically specific, new questions emerge, old debates (especially about universality) are settled, and the pathway toward interdisciplinary collaboration on the question of experience opens up