Translational Issues in Psychological Science, Vol 12(1), Mar 2026, 1-5; doi:10.1037/tps0000498
Affective science is moving beyond tightly controlled laboratory settings toward understanding emotions as they naturally unfold in everyday environments. This special issue features eight studies that together illustrate this broader shift, spanning laboratory approaches that simulate real-world experiences and ambulatory methods that directly assess emotions in daily life. The editorial is organized into three sections. The first highlights studies that extend traditional laboratory paradigms to model naturalistic emotional processes with ecological validity. The second presents studies using ecological momentary assessment to investigate emotion and emotion regulation in everyday scenarios. The final section offers methodological guidance and practical considerations for implementing ambulatory designs aligned with specific research goals. Collectively, these studies exemplify a field moving toward a more contextually grounded, temporally sensitive, and methodologically integrative science of emotion. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)