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Measuring emotions associated with

foods in consumer testing
Silvia King

Food Quality and Preference

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 Food Quality and Preference 21 (2010) 1114–1116

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Food Quality and Preference

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/foodqual

Measuring emotions associated with foods in consumer testing

Silvia C. King a,*, Herbert L. Meiselman b, B. Thomas Carr c
a
McCormick & Company, Inc., 204 Wight Avenue, Hunt Valley, MD 21030, USA
b
Herb Meiselman Training and Consulting Services, P.O. Box 28, Rockport, MA 01966, USA
c
Carr Consulting, 1215 Washington Ave., Suite 203, Wilmette, IL 60091, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The EsSense Profile™ methodology, presented in 2008 and published in 2010, incorporates both overall
Received 24 March 2010 acceptability and emotion measures in the consumer test questionnaire. This method provides a detailed
Received in revised form 26 July 2010 list of emotion attributes that consumers associate with the test products. This list can be expanded or
Accepted 8 August 2010
edited to account for specific emotions that may be appropriate in specific product categories and in spe-
Available online 11 August 2010
cific applications. Data collection can use either choose all that apply (CATA) or data scaling (e.g., using a
five-point scale). Both approaches provide useful information, however, the scaling approach provides
Keywords:
more detail specifically when comparing products with small differences. This method has been used
Emotion
Consumer testing
to guide product development efforts similar to that provided by traditional consumer tests, to map a
Food product category, and most importantly, to relate the product to the brand essence, which typically con-
veys an emotional aspect of the product. The relationship between acceptability and emotions has been
evaluated for different products and product categories. A few emotion terms relate to acceptability con-
sistently; however, many of the emotions measured do not relate to acceptability. For example, males
associated acceptability with two emotions, satisfied and ( ) disgusted, therefore the remaining 37 emo-
tions resulted in new information. Females, on the other hand, associated acceptability with 25 positive
emotions, including joyful, good, happy, pleasant and ( ) disgusted, leaving 14 emotions to express other
attitudes about the products. This demonstrates that emotions provide additional information not
explained by overall acceptability, resulting in a method that provides additional new information about
the products.
Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Background of 39 emotions (Table 1) may be expanded or modified to account

Measuring emotions as part of, or in addition to, other sensory
tests is gaining momentum in the Sensory Science and Consumer
Research field. The EsSense ProfileÒ methodology, presented in
2008 (King & Meiselman) and published in 2010 (King &
Meiselman), is one of such methods. King and Meiselman (2010)
reviewed the differences between emotions and moods and the
importance of identifying which type of data are being collected.
The EsSense ProfileÒ measures short and relatively intense re-
sponses about consumer products.
2. Ballot
The EsSense ProfileÒ provides a detailed list of 39 emotion attri-
butes that consumers associate with the test products (King &
Meiselman, 2010). The terms were selected from published litera-
ture as well as from consumer input from ten studies including
central location tests, internet surveys and home use tests. This list
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 410 771 7390; fax: +1 410 527 8924.
E-mail address: silvia_king@mccormick.com (S.C. King).
for emotions that may be appropriate in specific product categories
and in specific applications, similar to the approach used to create
a consumer test ballot. New terms can be identified from previ-
ously collected marketing data or from consumer feedback. Of
the 39 emotions included in the ballot, three have been classified
by consumers as negative emotions (bored, disgusted and wor-
ried), while most of the emotions are positive. A final group of
emotions was not clearly labeled as positive or negative, probably
because their meaning varies with context. Emotions for the
EsSense ProfileÒ were selected from the positive, negative, and
contextual groups of emotions. Desmet and Schifferstein (2008)
also measured positive and negative emotions and described food
experiences as being primarily positive, and Porcherot et al. (2010)
found mainly positive emotions associated with perfume odors.
The EsSense ProfileÒ uses traditional consumer test methodol-
ogy and incorporates the measurement of emotions as part of
the test questionnaire. Other hedonic and/or diagnostic questions,
such as ‘‘just about right” scales, may be included in the test to
provide a more comprehensive evaluation of the product.
Researchers need to be aware of the impact of one measure on
other measures (see Popper & Risvik, 1993). For this reason the

0950-3293/$ - see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.foodqual.2010.08.004
 S.C. King et al. / Food Quality and Preference 21 (2010) 1114–1116
Table 1
List of emotions used in the EsSense ProfileÒ ballot. These emotions were selected by
consumers based on their appropriateness to food.
Active Glad Pleased
Adventurous Good Polite
Affectionate Good-natured Quiet
Aggressive Guilty Satisfied
Bored Happy Secure
Calm Interested Steady
Daring Joyful Tame
Disgusted Loving Tender
Eager Merry Understanding
Energetic Mild Warm
Enthusiastic Nostalgic Whole
Free Peaceful Wild
Friendly Pleasant Worried
order of presentation of each method within a battery of methods
needs to be carefully considered. The method requires minimal
changes to a sensory test protocol, making it easy to execute in
the lab as well as easy for the respondent. The EsSense ProfileÒ is
also appropriate for internet use and home use tests.
3. Approach
Data collection may include either choose all that apply (CATA)
or data scaling (e.g., using a five-point scale). Both approaches pro-
vide useful data, however, the scaling approach provides more de-
tail specifically when comparing small product differences.
The ballot asks how respondents ‘‘feel” while evaluating a stim-
ulus. Stimuli may include a physical product, a concept and/or a
name of a product. Products can be branded or not, allowing one
to study the effect of branding which has been identified as impor-
tant in emotion product research (see, e.g., Thomson, Crocker, &
Marketo, 2010). Emotion measurements can be taken prior, during
and/or after evaluation of the stimulus; however, based on the
definition of emotions (King & Meiselman, 2009), the most appro-
priate time to evaluate emotions is during the exposure to the
stimulus, or immediately after, providing an immediate reaction
to the product.
4. Emotions versus acceptability
The relationship between acceptability and emotions has been
evaluated for different products and product categories. There is
a correlation between overall acceptability and emotion terms,
but acceptability and emotion scores can yield different conclu-
sions about products and differences among products. In addition,
we have seen that the relationships between acceptability and
emotion vary by product, product category, demographics and psy-
chographics. Porcherot et al. (2010) also discuss the relationship
between overall product acceptability and emotions, and conclude
that the information from acceptability testing is not identical with
the information from emotion testing. In our study, Principal Com-
ponent Analysis (PCA) technique was used to analyze consumer
tests results (central location tests) within product, or by product
category, demographics and psychographics. PCA groups attributes
(both acceptance and emotions) based on the level of correlation
that exists among them. Emotions that are categorized in the same
principal component as acceptability and have a correlation value
of 0.5 or higher are concluded to be related to overall acceptability.
On the other hand, emotions grouped in a different principal com-
ponent would be concluded to be orthogonal to the principal
component containing overall acceptability and therefore not
correlated to such. The results of the PCA clearly illustrate which
emotions are associated with acceptance and which are not. Table 2
shows the results of some of these tests. Specifically, we learned
1115
Table 2
Results of PCA for four product categories, and comparing gender results within each
food category.
Food category Emotions unrelated Gender
to OA
Males Females
Herbs/spices 13/39 12/39 16/39
Still and carbonated beverages 14/33 9/33 14/33
Snacks (sweet and salty) 18/39 37/39 16/39
Proteins (beef, chicken, and fish) 30/39 33/39 38/39
Top number indicates number of emotions not correlated to overall acceptability
and bottom number indicates the total number of emotions tested in each product
category ballot.
that in the case of proteins such as beef, chicken and fish, few emo-
tions are associated with overall acceptability (30 emotions unre-
lated out of 39) while for spices and herbs, only 13 or the 39
emotions are not associated with overall acceptability. A similar
response was found between genders for different product catego-
ries. Herbs/spices and still and carbonated beverages resulted in
fewer emotion terms associated with acceptability for both gen-
ders. However, for snacks, males associate only two emotions with
acceptability, versus 23 for females.
The differences between acceptability and emotions with pro-
teins may be partly explained by the carnivore nature of humans
which may trigger a primitive emotional response to protein based
foods since they are strongly associated with survival; on the other
hand, one might expect a vegan to have negative emotional re-
sponse to animal based foods. Spices, beverages (except water)
and snacks, although highly consumed, are not critical to human
survival. Additional research is needed to understand the relation
between emotion and acceptability and why it varies.
Differences in gender response may be associated with ‘gender
role’ discussed in Kring and Gordon (1998) where females tend to
express emotions more than males. We have found that on average,
females rate emotion intensities stronger than males; however, this
pattern is product specific and is reversed for some products. While
gender studies have examined differences between male and female
food preferences and food acceptability scores, emotions provide
another way to look at gender differences for products.
5. Applications
The EsSense ProfileÒ has been used to guide product develop-
ment efforts similar to those provided by traditional consumer
tests, map a product category, and most importantly, to relate
the product to the brand essence, which typically conveys an emo-
tional aspect of the product which is of primary importance to
marketing efforts. This methodology has been applied to different
consumer test approaches, such as central location tests, home use
tests and internet surveys, all of which have provided useful and
actionable data by indicating if any emotions differentiate the test
products, and if so, which emotions are stronger or weaker for each
particular sample. These data can then be compared to the brand
essence or positioning as well as consumer expectations from the
product and/or brand.
We have demonstrated that EsSense ProfileÒ provides incremen-
tal information to traditional consumer tests and overall acceptabil-
ity data and helps connect Marketing with Product Development
efforts via Consumer emotions and Acceptability ratings.
References
Desmet, P. M. A., & Schifferstein, H. N. J. (2008). Sources of positive and negative
emotions in food experience. Appetite, 50, 290–301.
King, S. C., & Meiselman, H. L. (2010). Development of a method to measure
consumer emotions associated with foods. Food Quality and Preference, 21(2),
168–177.
1116 S.C. King et al. / Food Quality and Preference 21 (2010) 1114–1116

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