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The effects of empathy on search efforts for missing persons
Author(s) -
Saraqini Dea,
Stear Cassie,
Moore Kara
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
applied cognitive psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.719
H-Index - 100
eISSN - 1099-0720
pISSN - 0888-4080
DOI - 10.1002/acp.3686
Subject(s) - empathy , psychology , social psychology , cognition , cognitive psychology , psychiatry
Summary People have difficulty sighting missing persons, partially because people's limited cognitive resources are required for searching. As a result, people sometimes do not devote resources to searching. This research will examine whether empathy increases the resources devoted to searching and search performance. In Experiment 1, we will manipulate empathy toward a formerly missing person and measure willingness to volunteer to search and actual search performance. In Experiment 2, we will manipulate empathy felt toward a missing person. We will measure the time participants spend studying the missing person's photograph. We hypothesize that participants induced to feel empathy will indicate more willingness to search (Exp 1 & 2), put more effort toward searching (Exp 1), and spend more time studying the photograph (Exp 2) than those not induced to feel empathy. If empathy increases search effort and performance, it could be induced in actual missing persons cases to increase recovery rates.