Description of Study

Principal Investigators: Dr. Lijiang Shen, Dr. Jennifer A. Samp

• The success of public health campaigns depend on two factors: (a) if the messages are
  effective and (b) if the message effects last long enough to result in behavioral changes.
• Emotional appeals often have limited effectiveness, but also unintended effects and
  boomerang effects.
• Empathy appeals potentially can promote intended effects while inhibiting unintended and
  unfavorable ones.
• Empathy can be defined as recipients’ sharing the emotions and cognitions with the
  characters in the message, and identification with the message.

 

Research Goals and Design:

• The goal of Study 1 is to develop valid and reliable measures of empathetic message
  processing and message empathy value.
• Empathetic message processing consists of three dimensions: shared cognition, emotions, and message identification.
• The message empathy value scale validated in Study 1 will be used to code messages as low vs. high empathy appeals.
• Study 2 uses an experimental design to compare the effectiveness of empathy appeals with
  fear and informational appeals.
• Participants will be low-income individuals (white, African Americans, and Latinos)
  recruited from Athens-Clarke County (N=240).