Emotions Evoked by Colors and Health Functionality Information of Colored Rice: A Cross-Cultural Study

This study aimed to examine the emotional responses evoked by cooked colored rice and its health functionality information in both consumers who eat rice as a staple food and consumers who do not eat rice as a staple food. Specifically, Korean and American consumers were exposed to colored rice and its health functionality information and an emotion lexicon was generated and measured based on focus group interviews (FGI) and two online consumer surveys. In test 1, the emotions evoked by presentation of stimuli to Koreans (N = 10) and Americans (N = 10) were extracted through FGIs and the first online consumer survey (Koreans = 69; Americans = 68) and an emotion lexicon was generated. As a result, a total of 34 terms were confirmed. Test 2 was conducted during the second online consumer survey (capturing data from a total of 208 Koreans and 208 Americans), utilizing the terms generated in test 1. In this test, only the colors (CO) of colored rice were presented to one group, while colors and health functionality information (CO&H) were presented to the other group. The overall liking for stimuli in both countries was highly correlated with familiarity. Koreans showed significantly more familiarity and liking for CO of white and black CO rice, while Americans showed significantly more familiarity and liking for CO of white and yellow rice. Hierarchical cluster analysis was performed to categorize the emotion terms, and the emotion terms were sorted into the three clusters, “Positive”, “Negative”, and “New”, for both countries. Under informed conditions, the emotions became more positive, and emotions in the “New” cluster were evoked in both countries. The current study employed a cross-cultural approach to assess consumers’ emotional responses to colored rice and health functionality information. Our findings suggest that providing foods with preferred colors for each culture and providing sufficient information on the said foods will help to promote unfamiliar foods.