Empathic Response to Advertising Drama

What it measures

Five items capture the extent to which a viewer emotionally merges with advertising drama characters, feeling as though the depicted events are happening to them personally. Empirically distinguished from sympathy, which involves understanding but not sharing a character's feelings.

Response format

7-point Likert (1=strongly disagree, 7=strongly agree)

Scale items

• While watching the ad, I experienced feeling as if the events were really happening to me.
• While watching the ad, I felt as though I were one of the characters.
• While watching the ad, I felt as though the events in the ad were happening to me.
• While watching the commercial, I experienced many of the same feelings that the characters portrayed.
• While watching the commercial, I felt as if the characters' feelings were my own.

Full scale items shown. Always cite the original source when using this scale in research.

Usage notes & scoring

Alphas of .95 (Experiment 1) and .96 (Experiment 2). CFAs confirmed discriminant validity from the companion sympathy scale. Developed specifically to distinguish empathy from sympathy in ad contexts — important theoretical distinction often collapsed in prior work. Companion scale: Sympathetic Response to Advertising Drama (ID 1002).

Recommended companion scales

Citation

Escalas, J. E., & Stern, B. B. (2003). Sympathy and empathy: Emotional responses to advertising dramas. Journal of Consumer Research, 29(March), 566–578.

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