Emotional Psychometric Evaluation of Words in a Tourism Context

Introduction: Affective lexical datasets based on valence, arousal, and dominance have greatly advanced the characterization of the behavioral, autonomic, and neurophysiological correlates of emotion. However, most studies using these datasets have been conducted in neutral, decontextualized settings, which limits their usefulness for investigating emotional dynamics in more ecologically valid scenarios. Method: To address this gap, 711 Spanish words were evaluated within a simulated tourism scenario designed to induce a situated affective state. Participants aged 18–29 planned a leisure trip and subsequently rated each word on valence and arousal in relation to that trip. These ratings were compared with established normative values obtained in neutral contexts. Additionally, potential differences based on gender, verb conjugation, and destination preferences were examined. Results: A significant and consistent increase in arousal ratings was observed when words were evaluated in the tourism context. No statistically significant differences in arousal—or in any of the additional parameters analyzed—were found as a function of gender, verb conjugation, or destination preferences. Conclusions: The findings demonstrate clear contextual modulation in emotional lexical evaluation, particularly in arousal. This work highlights the need to develop context-specific affective word datasets to align stimulus materials with the situational demands of studies conducted in particular thematic contexts, thereby enhancing the ecological validity of their results.