Public Service Advertisements: Emotions and Empathy Guide Prosocial Behavior

Richard P. Bagozzi; David J. Moore

doi:10.1177/002224299405800105

Public Service Advertisements: Emotions and Empathy Guide Prosocial Behavior

Richard P. Bagozzi¹; David J. Moore²

¹ Dwight F. Benton Professor of Marketing and Behavioral Science in Management · ² Assistant Professor of Marketing in the Department of Sport Management and Communication and The School of Business Administration, University of Michigan.

Journal of Marketing 1994

The authors develop and test a theory of how public service advertisements function to induce helping responses. Building on Lazarus's general theory of emotion and adaptation, they hypothesize that public service ads designed to reduce the incidence of child abuse stimulate negative emotions; these, in turn, lead to empathic reactions and end with the decision to help. Two field experiments are conducted to test the theory.

DOI: 10.1177/002224299405800105
Volume: 58 (1)
Pages: 56-70
Language: en
Export: BibTeX
Sources: crossref