The influence of emotional cues and anthropomorphism on product temperature expectations

Abstract

Throughout six online experiments (four pre-registered), in which participants were tasked to evaluate their temperature expectations of different beverages with or without emotional cues (i.e., emoji facial expressions) with specific temperature associations, we found that imbuing a product with emotional content can influence its expected temperature in online settings. A negative valence, low arousal (i.e., sad) expression on the receptacle of a hot beverage (e.g., hot chocolate milk, coffee) led to a lower expected temperature compared to a beverage with a positive valence, high arousal (i.e., happy) expression and a control condition without any expression. Notably, a happy expression did not result in any significant difference in expected temperature. In addition, there were no significant differences with cold beverages (i.e., iced chocolate milk, beer). We found that the influence of the sad emoji expression was enhanced with higher levels of anthropomorphism (i.e., making individuals focus on the emotions of the product). Our results suggest that the mechanism behind these effects is based on the product being imbued with the emotional connotation of the sad expression and, subsequently, its corresponding temperature association. Our research adds to the literature on consumer behaviour, food and anthropomorphism, and the relationship between temperature and emotions, and it has applications related to food expectations.