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How to measure mood in nutrition research
Widely held is the belief that experiencing a positive mood increases the amount of food consumed, however, mood is an arduous parameter to measure. In this work by Hammersley, Reid & Atkin (2014), the authors begin by highlighting four distinct mood-related theoretical challenges, including differentiating between transient and protracted mood; differentiating between emotions and mood; the impact of cognitive, social, and physiological processes on mood; and finally, the identification of mood as a sovereign state of consciousness as opposed to a mere part of the conscious spectrum. Mood is susceptible to influence through the social setting, psychological environment, and physical state related to the consumption of food among several feeding aspects that are not linked to nutrition, in addition to the impact of the methodology used to measure mood, making the task of measuring mood a difficult one. The authors present the most commonly used mood-rating methods in research, their prerequisites, and the guidelines governing the choice of a mood-rating system in experiments. The authors summarize their recommendations on ideal mood-rating systems in that they should be brief, simple, comprehensive, two-dimensional, reproducible, and account for cognitive bias. [NPID: Affect, mood assessment, mood rating].
Year: 2014
