Understanding the role of personal aspects in positive and negative meal experiences: psychological needs, values, and emotions

ABSTRACT The aim of this research was to study most positive and negative personal meal experiences in terms of experienced emotions, psychological needs, values, as well as the personal meal context. 64 participants wrote qualitative descriptions of their most positive and negative recent meal experiences and rated their personal experiences quantitatively using the PANAS method for experienced emotions, and questionnaires probing the salience of contextual aspects, psychological needs, and values. The results highlighted the psychological needs of relatedness and autonomy, both hedonistic and conservation values, and the emotions “interested” and “enthusiastic” as especially salient in most positive meal experiences. The qualitative results indicated that social aspects (“the meeting”) and the food and drink product were the most prominent aspects affecting both most positive and most negative meal experiences. The role of accompanying persons was especially salient in positive experiences and the role of meetings with service personnel in negative experiences. Issues related to the personal context (“the self”) were mentioned as factors affecting meal experiences in about 35% of most positive experiences and 40% of descriptions of most negative experiences. The results point out the benefits of including the personal context in studies of meal experiences along with traditionally studied aspects.