Sympathy and empathy: Emotional responses to advertising dramas

This research examines differences in consumers ' sympathy and empathy re-sponses to teievised drama commercials. The research framework is multidisci-plinary, for construct definition from humanities disciplines (aesthetics and philos-ophy) grounds the empirical testing of sympathy and empathy responses to advertising. Valid and reliable measurement instruments are developed to test relationships between sympathy and empathy as responses to classical and vi-gnette advertising dramas. Results of two experiments indicate that sympathy responses mediate the effect of a drama advertisement's form on empathy re-sponses, with both sympathy and empathy directly enhancing positive attitudes to an advertisement. The purpose of this study is to distinguish between sym-pathy and empathy as separate but related constructs and to test the influence of each as emotional responses to advertising dramas. The rationale for examining the linked constructs is that prior empirical research has borrowed but one half of the sympathy/empathy system, treating empathy as a monolithic response measured on a bipolar continuum ranging from empathy to nonempathy (Boiler t990; Boiler