From mood to food and from food to mood: A psychological perspective on the measurement of food-related emotions in consumer research

The bi-directional influences between emotion and food consumption are discussed in view of recent efforts to find emotional factors that influence food choice and eating- and drinking behaviour independently from traditional factors as liking, wanting and appropriateness. Distinctions are made between conscious and unconscious emotions and their relative importance in food-related behaviour is discussed. In response to eating disorders like obesity, much more is known about the influence of emotion and mood on food choice and intake than about the influence of food on mood and emotion, which only recently gained prominence in food-related emotion research. This led to a number of emotion measurement methods that differ strongly in their explicit or implicit measurement approach and in the extent to which they demand conscious emotion awareness and verbal understanding on the part of the participants. These methods are critically discussed and questions are raised about the specificity of their emotional contents and about their use at different moments in time, such as before, during and at different moments after consumption. Furthermore, doubts were raised about the independency of their contributions from the traditional measurements (liking, wanting and appropriateness) and suggestions are made for improving the practical applicability of an efficient emotion measurement.</p

Are implicit emotion measurements evoked by food unrelated to liking?

In an effort to find a simple method to measure implicit and unconscious emotional effects of food consumption, a number of methods were compared in an experiment in which 3 groups of at least 24 subjects were each exposed to a pair of yoghurts of the same brand and marketed in the same way, but with different flavours or fat content. The methods used were eye tracking of the packaging, face reading during consumption, a new emotive projection test (EPT) and an autobiographical reaction time test based on mood congruency. In the emotive projection test the subjects rated photographs of others on 6 positive and 6 negative personality traits after having eaten the yoghurt. It showed clear differences in two of the three pairs of yoghurt. The autobiographical congruency test failed to reach significance although all findings went in the same direction as the ones in the EPT. Liking and familiarity with the products were also measured and the fact that they were not related to the emotional effects was established. Eye tracking showed effects of familiarity when the measurements before and after consumption of the yoghurts were compared. The results of the face reading test are not reported due to technical difficulties. Although liking itself was not correlated with the emotional effects in the emotive projection test, shifts in liking caused by consumption of the product did, indicating the emotional importance of pleasant surprise or disappointment in the confrontation between the expected and the actual experience of the product. Sensory differences in the fruit flavours had no effects on the emotional reactions, but change in fat content did, while vanilla flavour had a strong positive emotional effect.</p