An update on the roles of culture and language in designing emotion lists: English, Spanish and Portuguese

Abstract

This paper is an update on a study investigating the effect of culture and language on reported emotions and confirms that both culture and language are important in studying emotions evoked by beverages. In addition, sub-categories of products, such as beverage types have different emotion associations in different cultures. A list of emotions developed for beverages in the UK, US, Mexico and Spain was translated into Portuguese for Brazil and Portugal. An on-line questionnaire combining the emotions selected by the focus groups was then completed by 600 respondents each in Brazil and Portugal where people were asked which emotions applied to their favourite beverage, beer and their least liked alcoholic beverage. Data from the two studies were combined.Respondents from English speaking countries showed very similar emotional reactions for individual beverage types. Respondents from Mexico and Brazil were more similar to English speaking respondents than to those from Spain and, with the exception of wine, respondents from Portugal were similar to those of Brazil and Mexico in their emotional reactions. Respondents from Spain and Portugal were similar in their emotional reaction to wine. We confirm our conclusion that for products, but certainly for beverages, culture will affect emotion language usage, but even within the same category, the pattern of differences may be different for different products. In designing emotion lists it is therefore important to take both culture and language into consideration and to realize that a list developed in one country for a specific product type is not necessarily suitable in another country or for a different product.