Empathie et persuasion

Abstract

The authors developed a Likert-type 5-point scale to measure empathy as a personality trait in the context of media reception, i.e., virtual empathy. In the initial phase of the research, the authors measured the virtual empathy of a sampling of university students (n = 104) enrolled in an undergraduate public communications course. In the second, experimental phase students with varied virtual empathy scores viewed selected audio-visual social advertisements on the same theme. The results will be analyzed to assess the relationship between the students' virtual empathy, as a personality trait, and their empathetic response to the audio-visual advertisements.

Keywords

• media reception
• personality trait
• virtual empathy
• empathetic response
• social advertisement