Ten Key Emotions in Qualitative Research

John Habershon PhD FRSA

Active EngagementThis is a broad but well-defined category which is invaluable for testing communications. Often advertising is not designed to evoke particular emotions, such as humour. Identifying moments of active engagement enables us to measure how much the communication grabs and holds the attention of the viewer.

When a communication captures attention we can see two effects: it provokes thought and prompts a release of energy in the respondent.

Signs of thinking include quick eye movement, the head tilting to listen more carefully and stroking of the lips, or the chin, and working the mouth with the effort of thought.

Secondly, it is simply not possible to be really engaged by something and not express it in body movement. There must be outlet for energy in the body when we see or hear something we find really interesting, something which stimulates us. Signs such as nodding the head, movement of arms and head, and especially leaning toward the object of interest are significant.

BoredomThis is an emotion brought on by repetition, or at least the expectation of repetition, so it is more common in ads over 60 seconds, or press ads shown to the respondent which are too similar.

The gaze becomes unfocused, the eyes look blank. The respondent is not simply uninterested, she is experience negative feelings, as we see from her compressed lips and the downturned corners of her mouth.

This is an unusual emotion to be found in communication testing – there is usually insufficient time to become bored. Disengagement is a more com-mon response to creative material which fails to stimulate.

DiscomfortSome TV ads we have tested, such as those for charities featuring starving children, respondents find distressing - even making people look away from the screen. This is not the same as experiencing sadness. It is much less about thinking and more about an immediate bodily response to mental discomfort.

Confront someone with an uncomfortable thought and we see signs of the flight response – looking for a place of escape (rapidly looking away in different directions), shutting out the world (closing the eyes), self-comforting (cradling or stroking the head), or reducing the threat by making oneself a smaller target (turning side on, or sinking the head into the neck). Head movement is an important signal of discomfort – fast involuntary shakes as an outlet for negative feelings.

DisengagementThis is the simplest to recognise of our ten emotions. All that is required is for the respondent to look away from the TV ad, or program.

This glance away can be extremely fast and often is. A sidewards glance can take place in less than a second.

It’s a little respite from what is being viewed.

In this clip we can see signs of disengagement and displeasure in the way Beth fidgets, touches her hair and moves her mouth.

She stretches her mouth with tightly compressed lips. Then she purses her lips and looks away from the screen for a fraction of a second.

DispleasureHow does the body respond to a negative feeling?

The mouth is a major player in this particular drama. A closed mouth is a natural defensive posture – socio-biologists would say it is about preventing anything coming in to the mouth. We see the viewer watching the ad with her lips compressed, brow slightly lowered and the mouth pursed in displeasure.

Other signs include: twitches of the nose, eyes and mouth; quick changes in the eye gaze direction; a lack of focus or narrowed eyes; a defensive, side-on posture; tension in the body, seen in stillness or stiffness; shifting the body away from the object being considered.

Displeasure is closely related to puzzlement since not ‘getting’ something is closely aligned to finding it irritating. The key difference lies in the actions of the mouth.

HumourHow do we distinguish between humour and pleasure? When something is funny (not simply enjoyable) energy is released in the body. When something amuses us it produces a broad smile, the sound of laughter perhaps, but always movement in the body.

Humour brings a range of bodily responses, from raising the shoulders and tucking in the chin, to leaning back and opening up, or scrunching up in a ball of private enjoyment.

Humour is fleeting, unlike pleasure which can stay on the face for some time. A chief difference between finding something funny, or just pleasurable is that the response to humour momentarily takes us away from the object of humour. With pleasure we see a sharper focus on the object; with humour the eyes glaze over and the gaze momentarily loses focus. We go in to our own space, and this is sometimes demonstrated by closing the eyes for a moment.

PleasureSmiling is almost always a feature – from the faintest corner-of-the-mouth twitch, to a broad beaming smile that creases the eyes. Pleasure is signalled by a sustained smile.

The eyes also tend to be larger when someone is relaxed and happy (‘wide-eyed’) as they take in the maximum of visual information. In moments of pleasure we sometimes see a rapid widening, the ‘eye pop’.

Positive emotions are also associated with relaxed muscles in body and in facial muscles, particularly in and around the mouth.

We often see a confident non-defensive posture, an ‘opening up’ of the body, arms relaxed by the side, facing the person, or the screen, full on.

PuzzlementOne of the easiest emotions to see, puzzlement is marked by the lowering of the brow and narrowing of the eyes.

There might also be movement as the person sits back slightly to take a pause for thought.

Puzzlement is not necessarily always a negative emotion, of course, far from it. In many communications it’s a sign of engaging the viewer before revealing the answer, or even provoking thought leading to a more satisfying understanding – ‘ah I get it!’

However, when we also see the mouth compressed or stretched into a frown, then we have irritation. Some things are simply annoyingly difficult to comprehend.

SadnessWe talk of being ‘deflated’ and a sad person appears as though some of the air has been taken out of them. Sadness shows itself in a downturned posture, a drop of the shoulders, and a lowering of the head.

The characteristic sad mouth is a stretching of the upper lip down and jutting out the bottom lip. A look away might happen, as the respondent tries to bring the symptoms of sadness under control.

Like discomfort, sadness has an effect on bodily movement as the respondent deals with the emotion, perhaps rubbing the eyes and moving the head back and forth. The eyes appear slightly glazed over, with an unfocused gaze. The respondent can sometimes be seen working his mouth, indicating the struggle against showing emotion.

SurpriseA sudden unexpected fact can activate a wave of energy to the respondent. Typically within a second or two we might see the respondent close her eyes to take in the information, then the eyes narrow, before both eyes open wide.

Raised eyebrows are of course the key sign, together with widened eyes as the respondent takes in more of the object which has surprised her. This might be followed by a leaning back and a tilt up of the head, giving pause for thought.

Surprise can show itself by (literally) turning the head; the respondent might also lean back for a moment to reflect on what she has just seen.

Manual Facial Coding

The Methodology

Reading Emotions App55 subtle and mixed emotions - each with a slow motion video, a set of stills and a detailed description.

Our expertise comes from eight years and thousands of hours analysing the facial expressions and body language of consumers.

At each second of a TV ad or programme, or within two seconds of a still image being shown, we record the emotion.

This builds to a detailed set of metrics on the incidence of each emotion, the key moments when emotions are identified, comparisons between the effectiveness of ads, video games and other creative material. www.momentumresearch.co.uk