  Words play a central role in how we express ourselves. Lexicons of
word-emotion associations are widely used in research and real-world
applications for sentiment analysis, tracking emotions associated with products
and policies, studying health disorders, tracking emotional arcs of stories,
and so on. However, inappropriate and incorrect use of these lexicons can lead
to not just sub-optimal results, but also inferences that are directly harmful
to people. This paper brings together ideas from Affective Computing and AI
Ethics to present, some of the practical and ethical considerations involved in
the creation and use of emotion lexicons -- best practices. The goal is to
provide a comprehensive set of relevant considerations, so that readers
(especially those new to work with emotions) can find relevant information in
one place. We hope this work will facilitate more thoughtfulness when one is
deciding on what emotions to work on, how to create an emotion lexicon, how to
use an emotion lexicon, how to draw meaningful inferences, and how to judge
success.
