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

• Strength and valence of emotions influence food choice and food intake.
• Food may improve mood particularly in stressed people.
• Most emotion measurements are unduly explicit and verbal.
• Implicitly integrated emotions should be measured through remembrance.
• Segmentation of consumers on integration of different emotions is desirable.

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.