Construction of the Scales of Socioemotional Development

Abstract

Up to this point, our discussion has been primarily theoretical. We now focus our attention on the concrete problems of scale construction. Our ultimate desire was to construct a measurement instrument that could (1) measure several different emotions in infants and young children between the ages of 3 months and 30 months; (2) measure emotions in settings that engage infants in everyday, naturally occurring situations; (3) measure emotions through a variety of behaviors, including facial, vocal, postural, and locomotive; and (4) measure differences among infants in terms of single emotions as well as patterns or configurations of emotions. In constructing the measurement scales, a series of questions were raised about which emotions should be studied, where these emotions should be studied, which behaviors should be used to reference the emotions, and which situations would be most likely to activate these emotions. These questions are the focus of the discussion in this chapter. The empirical aspects of the scale construction are described in the following chapter.