Crunch your anger, squash your anxiety: Impact of negative emotions on food texture preferences

Texture is a central component of consumers' food experiences, often rivaling taste and aroma in importance. Although prior research has shown that emotions influence both the amount and type of food consumed, their impact on texture preferences remains unexplored. This research investigates whether, and how, two discrete negative emotions - anger and anxiety - shape mouth behavior preferences (e.g., crunching, squashing) and, consequently, preference for and attention to corresponding food textures (e.g., crunchy, mushy). Across two studies, we find that emotions elicit distinct mouth behavior tendencies aligned with their action tendencies. In Study 1 (N = 112), self-report data reveal that anger increases preference for crunching behavior, whereas anxiety increases preference for squashing behavior. In Study 2 (N = 53), electroencephalogram (EEG) data show that anger heightens attentional allocation to crunchy textures, while anxiety enhances attention to mushy textures, as reflected by the P300 component. Together, these findings contribute to the literatures on emotions, food texture preferences, oral haptics, sensory marketing, and neuromarketing. Specifically, the results elucidate how emotions drive texture preferences. Emotions can manifest in specific mouth behaviors consistent with their action tendencies, thereby shaping consumers' preferences for and attention to food textures congruent with those mouth behaviors. This suggests that texture preferences may be context-dependent rather than solely trait-based. Furthermore, the findings advance embodied emotion theory by demonstrating that discrete emotional states produce distinct neurophysiological patterns of attention and extend neuromarketing by illustrating the utility of EEG in capturing emotion-congruent biases in food perception.