The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades

In this article I consider the future of the field of emotion. My conclusion—borrowing the title of a little-remembered song from the 1980s—is that “the future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades.” I begin this article by considering some of the many daunting conceptual and empirical challenges here; this is clearly not a field for the faint of heart. I then turn to some of the incredible conceptual and empirical opportunities here; there are so many it’s easy to feel dizzy. In the final section, I predict that the field of emotion will broaden and become more problem focused, and hazard a “top 10” list of hot topics.