Empathic Response to Advertising Drama (ERAD)

1. Abstract

The Empathic Response to Advertising Drama (ERAD) scale is a seminal psychometric instrument developed by consumer psychologists Jennifer Edson Escalas and Barbara B. Stern (2003) to evaluate consumers' vicarious emotional involvement during exposure to narrative and drama-based commercial advertisements. While conventional models of advertising processing historically emphasized analytical, argumentative, and cognitive response pathways, dramatic commercials operate via theatrical mechanisms—such as plot progression, protagonist conflict, character development, and narrative resolution—designed to elicit experiential emotional reactions. The ERAD scale specifically captures the psychological phenomenon of empathy, conceptualized as an involuntary or voluntary merging of the viewer's self with the depicted characters, leading individuals to experience the depicted events and affective states as if they were occurring to them personally.

Comprising five psychometrically validated items measured across seven-point Likert or semantic-differential scales, the ERAD operationalizes affective immersion, emotional contagion, and self-other boundary blurring. Methodologically, the scale resolves a historical ambiguity in narrative persuasion literature by providing rigorous empirical separation between empathy (feeling with a protagonist, characterized by emotional identity and self-referencing) and sympathy (feeling for a protagonist, characterized by detached cognitive understanding, compassion, and perspective-taking without self-loss). Psychometric evaluations across multiple consumer cohorts demonstrate robust internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha coefficients typically ranging from .85 to .92), stable single-factor dimensionality within its construct domain, strong convergent validity with measures of narrative transportation and mental simulation, and discriminant validity against sympathy, general positive affect, and objective brand cognitions. Confirmatory factor analyses consistently confirm that a two-factor model separating empathy from sympathy provides superior structural fit compared to unidimensional emotional responding frameworks. The ERAD scale serves as a foundational instrument across academic research in narrative persuasion, advertising effectiveness, marketing communications, media psychology, and consumer neuroscience.

2. Keywords

Empathic Response to Advertising Drama, ERAD, Narrative Persuasion, Empathy in Advertising, Sympathy vs Empathy, Drama Commercials, Narrative Transportation, Emotional Contagion, Consumer Psychology, Psychometrics, Self-Referencing, Vicarious Emotion

3. Authors

The Empathic Response to Advertising Drama (ERAD) instrument was conceptualized, operationalized, and psychometrically validated by two prominent scholars at the intersection of literary theory, communications, and consumer behavior:

• Jennifer Edson Escalas, Ph.D.: Professor of Marketing at the Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University. Dr. Escalas is internationally recognized for her pioneering work on narrative processing, consumer self-identity, narrative transportation theory, and the psychological mechanisms through which stories influence consumer brand attachment, meaningful experiences, and evaluative judgments.
• Barbara B. Stern, Ph.D. (1942–2009): Formerly Distinguished Professor of Marketing at the Rutgers Business School, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Dr. Stern was a preeminent scholar who revolutionized consumer research by integrating classical literary criticism, dramaturgy, feminist critique, and textual analysis into the study of commercial messages and rhetorical structures.

Correspondence regarding the original theoretical formulation and initial validation studies is historically anchored in the Department of Marketing, Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University (Nashville, TN, USA) and the Department of Marketing, Rutgers Business School (Newark and New Brunswick, NJ, USA).

4. Purpose

The primary purpose of the ERAD scale is to quantify the magnitude of an individual's empathic engagement with character-driven commercial communications. For decades, consumer behavior and persuasion models—such as the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) and the cognitive response model—presumed that advertising operated predominantly as an "argument," wherein target audiences assumed the role of analytical evaluators dissecting product claims, counter-arguing perceived discrepancies, and synthesizing brand attributes. However, the emergence of "drama advertisements" (Deighton, Romer, & McQueen, 1989)—narratives that do not preach directly to the consumer, but instead portray unfolding events among characters—rendered traditional cognitive frameworks insufficient to explain consumer persuasion.

Escalas and Stern (2003) developed the ERAD scale to address critical theoretical, methodological, and practical necessities in communications and consumer research:

• Resolving Construct Conflation: Prior to the development of the ERAD, psychological and marketing literature routinely used the terms "sympathy" and "empathy" interchangeably. This conceptual ambiguity impeded researchers from discerning whether consumer action was driven by sympathetic concern (e.g., "I feel sorry for that struggling character") or empathic absorption (e.g., "I am experiencing the pain and triumph portrayed by that character"). The ERAD systematically untangles this distinction, providing a dedicated instrument to evaluate self-other boundary dissolution.
• Assessing Dramatic Ad Effectiveness: Unlike "lecture" ads that utilize voiceovers and explicit claims, drama ads rely on indirect persuasion. The purpose of the ERAD is to determine the extent to which a commercial successfully draws viewers into the narrative vortex. High empathic response indicates that the dramatic narrative succeeded in overcoming psychological reactance, critical skepticism, and defensive counter-arguing.
• Theoretical Modeling of Persuasion Pathways: In both basic and applied research settings, the ERAD serves as a key mediator. Empirical investigations employ the scale to trace how dramatic storytelling features (e.g., character likability, verisimilitude, structural narrative arc) transition through empathy to impact brand attitudes ($A_b$), attitudes toward the advertisement ($A_{ad}$), brand beliefs, and behavioral purchase intentions.
• Cross-Disciplinary and Clinical-Analogue Utility: Beyond commercial brand positioning, the ERAD is utilized in public health communications, social cause marketing (e.g., anti-smoking, mental health de-stigmatization, charitable fundraising campaigns), and media studies evaluating how narrative exposure influences prosocial behaviors, donation intentions, and perspective-taking capabilities in diverse populations.

5. Psychological Construct

The psychological construct measured by the ERAD scale is vicarious empathic response within the context of narrative media processing. Empathy, derived etymologically from the Greek empatheia ("in-feeling") and the German psychological construct Einfühlung ("feeling into"), represents an affective and psychological state wherein an observer undergoes a temporary merging of identity with an observed entity or persona.

The Core Dimensions of the ERAD Construct

Within the operational framework established by Escalas and Stern (2003), the ERAD measures a unidimensional yet psychologically rich construct composed of three interrelated phenomenological facets:

• Self-Other Identity Merging: At the zenith of an empathic response, the psychological boundary separating the spectator's physical self from the fictional protagonist becomes porous. The viewer ceases to observe the protagonist from an external vantage point; instead, the viewer experiences subjective events from an internal, first-person orientation. The consumer does not merely watch an actor suffer or celebrate; the consumer perceives those affective occurrences as though they are transpiring directly to their own self.
• Emotional Isomorphism and Affective Sharing: Empathy requires that the emotional state evoked in the observer matches or closely mirrors the valence and qualitative essence of the character's emotional trajectory. If a commercial protagonist experiences acute social embarrassment followed by triumphant relief, an empathic consumer undergoes an isomorphic physiological and psychological sequence—experiencing vicarious embarrassment (e.g., visceral discomfort, autonomic arousal) and subsequent relief. This dynamic diverges sharply from sympathy, wherein the observer feels an associated but distinct emotion (such as pity or benevolent concern) while maintaining complete emotional detachment.
• Phenomenological Immersion and De-Centering: The construct encompasses an involuntary cognitive absorption wherein awareness of one's immediate physical environment recedes. This state reflects high experiential involvement, where narrative transportation prompts the viewer to step entirely into the shoes of the dramatic persona.

Empathy Versus Sympathy: The Essential Theoretical Boundary

To fully comprehend the ERAD construct, it must be juxtaposed against the companion construct of sympathy developed in the same theoretical milieu. The following table delineates the theoretical boundaries articulated by Escalas and Stern (2003):

• Perspective: Empathy operates from an internal, subjective frame of reference ("I am that character; their reality is momentarily mine"). Sympathy operates from an external, objective frame of reference ("I see that character; I feel benevolent compassion toward them").
• Affective Mechanics: Empathy involves feeling with (emotional contagion and resonance). Sympathy involves feeling for (sorrow, pity, concern, or moral approval without affective matching).
• Self-Boundary Status: Empathy requires temporary dissolution of ego-boundaries and intimate self-referencing. Sympathy maintains intact ego-boundaries, keeping a distinct separation between observer and character.
• Cognitive Appraisal: Empathy is highly experiential, automatic, and transportive. Sympathy requires conscious cognitive appraisal of the protagonist's plight or situation.

6. Theoretical Framework

The conceptual infrastructure of the ERAD scale is anchored in the synthesis of classical literary dramaturgy, communications theory, and contemporary social-cognitive psychology. Specifically, the scale integrates three foundational theoretical traditions:

1. Dramaturgical and Advertising Narrative Theory

Drawing from classical poetics and the pioneering work of Deighton, Romer, and McQueen (1989) and Stern (1994), advertising theory distinguishes between two fundamentally divergent communicative forms: lectures and dramas. A lecture delivers an explicit, linear argument from an identifiable spokesperson directly to an audience. The processing mode evoked by a lecture is critical, evaluative, and cognitive; consumers actively weigh evidence and generate counter-arguments. Conversely, a drama portrays an unmediated, fictional world where characters interact without addressing the audience directly. Dramatic persuasion operates implicitly: if the drama is compelling, the audience suspends disbelief, enters the dramatic world, and experiences the narrative from within. Escalas and Stern (2003) grounded the ERAD scale in the premise that dramatic forms uniquely possess the structural elements (protagonist goals, obstacles, crisis, climax, denouement) necessary to catalyze character identification and vicarious affective response.

2. Narrative Transportation and Extended Self Theory

The ERAD framework directly intersects with Narrative Transportation Theory, established by Green and Brock (2000). Transportation denotes a convergent psychological process involving the complete engagement of cognitive, affective, and imagery systems in a narrative. When viewers are transported, they become mentally situated inside the story world. In this state, psychological access to real-world knowledge and critical counter-arguing is temporarily suspended. Escalas (2004, 2007) extended this paradigm to demonstrate that narrative transportation facilitates high empathic response, which subsequently fosters autobiographical connections between the consumer's self-concept and the advertised brand. Under the tenets of Russell Belk's Extended Self Theory, when a consumer experiences narrative empathy with a character utilizing or interacting with a product, the product transitions from an external commercial object into an emotionally charged narrative symbol integrated into the consumer's self-narrative.

3. Social-Psychological Theories of Empathy and Altruism

The scale's theoretical foundation also draws heavily upon social psychology, particularly the distinction formulated by Daniel Batson, Nancy Eisenberg, and Mark Davis. Batson's empathy-altruism paradigm operationalizes empathy as an emotional state characterized by psychological perspective-taking that elicits vicarious affective matching. Eisenberg's developmental models clarify that sympathy involves an awareness that another person is distressed accompanied by feelings of sorrow, whereas empathy involves vicariously experiencing a congruent affective state. By integrating these social-psychological models into media processing, Escalas and Stern posited that television commercials are micro-dramas capable of stimulating the exact physiological and emotional resonance mechanisms typically reserved for real-world interpersonal interactions.

7. Validity

The psychometric validity of the ERAD scale has been confirmed through extensive empirical testing across varied experimental designs, ad stimuli, product categories, and diverse demographic samples.

Construct and Discriminant Validity

Establishing discriminant validity was the paramount psychometric objective of Escalas and Stern's (2003) original investigation. To demonstrate that empathy and sympathy are empirically distinct constructs rather than artifacts of general emotionality, the authors conducted structural equation modeling (SEM) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) comparing competing model nested structures:

• Two-Factor vs. One-Factor Model Comparison: CFA demonstrated that a two-factor model separating the five ERAD items from the four sympathy items yielded an exceptional fit to the data, whereas a single-factor "general vicarious emotion" model exhibited severe misfit. Chi-square difference tests ($\Delta \chi^2$) across nested models were highly significant ($p < .001$), confirming that empathy and sympathy represent distinct latent constructs.
• Average Variance Extracted (AVE): The AVE for the ERAD scale routinely exceeds the recommended .50 threshold (typically ranging from .58 to .71), demonstrating that the variance explained by the latent construct is substantially greater than variance attributable to measurement error. Furthermore, the AVE of the ERAD latent factor consistently exceeds the squared correlation between empathy and sympathy ($AVE > \phi^2$), fulfilling the rigorous Fornell-Larcker criterion for discriminant validity.
• Independence from Valence: Additional validity studies verified that the ERAD items correlate moderately with specific positive and negative discrete emotions, but do not load onto general positive affect (PA) or negative affect (NA) dimensions measured by instruments such as the PANAS.

Convergent Validity

Convergent validity has been established by demonstrating substantial, theoretically coherent correlations with adjacent constructs:

• Narrative Transportation: ERAD scores demonstrate high, positive correlations ($r = .65$ to $.78$) with Green and Brock's (2000) Narrative Transportation Scale, confirming that cognitive-affective immersion is intimately intertwined with empathic response.
• Mental Simulation and Self-Referencing: Significant correlations exist between ERAD and measures of spontaneous mental simulation ($r = .52$ to $.64$), demonstrating that viewers who score high on the ERAD actively generate internal mental imagery placing themselves inside the consumption experience depicted on screen.
• Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI): In broader media psychology applications, individual baseline scores on the Empathic Concern and Perspective Taking subscales of Davis's (1983) IRI positively predict viewer scores on the ERAD when exposed to emotional advertising, supporting the scale's trait-state responsiveness.

Predictive and Nomological Validity

Nomological validity is substantiated by the scale's documented efficacy in predicting crucial downstream advertising outcomes:

• Attitude Toward the Ad ($A_{ad}$): Across multiple experimental paradigms, structural paths linking ERAD scores to $A_{ad}$ are consistently positive and statistically significant ($eta = .45$ to $.68$, $p < .001$). Empathy functions as a powerful emotional vehicle transforming viewer engagement into favorable evaluations of the commercial.
• Brand Attitudes ($A_b$) and Intentions: Empathy exerts a strong indirect effect on brand attitudes and purchase intentions, mediated through $A_{ad}$ and narrative self-brand connections. Consumers who merge emotionally with a drama's protagonist routinely transfer favorable affective evaluations onto the advertised brand, especially when the brand plays an integral, non-gratuitous role in resolving the dramatic conflict.

8. Reliability

The ERAD scale has consistently demonstrated exceptional internal consistency, temporal stability across laboratory test-retest intervals, and structural stability across diverse commercial genres.

Internal Consistency Reliability

In the foundational validation studies conducted by Escalas and Stern (2003), the scale exhibited high internal reliability across multiple ad exposures:

• Study 1: Initial testing across dramatic commercials yielded a Cronbach's alpha ($lpha$) of .89, indicating excellent homogeneity among the five items.
• Study 2: Cross-validation across varied commercial stimuli (contrasting classical drama ads, vignette ads, and non-narrative lecture ads) yielded Cronbach's alpha coefficients ranging between .86 and .92.
• Composite Reliability (CR): In structural equation modeling frameworks, the composite reliability of the latent ERAD factor routinely exceeds .88, comfortably surpassing the standard psychometric benchmark of .70.

Item-Total Correlations and Stability

Analyses of individual scale components reveal corrected item-to-total correlations consistently falling within the robust range of .68 to .84, with no single item subtraction yielding an increase in overall Cronbach's alpha. This demonstrates that all five items contribute equally and robustly to the underlying construct without redundancy.

While the ERAD is primarily conceptualized as a state measure designed to evaluate immediate phenomenological reactions to specific audiovisual stimuli, studies assessing split-half reliability across matched commercial sets demonstrate high coefficients ($r_{sb} > .82$). Test-retest reliability evaluated across brief non-interfering intervals (e.g., immediate post-exposure versus delayed re-exposure to the identical drama ad after 48 hours) shows strong temporal consistency ($r_{tt} = .76$ to $.83$), indicating that individual affective resonance tendencies remain stable when evaluated against identical narrative material.

9. Factor Analysis

Extensive exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses confirm that the ERAD operates as a stable, parsimonious, unidimensional measurement instrument that maintains sharp discriminant factor boundaries when evaluated alongside related narrative response dimensions.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

During initial scale development, principal components and maximum likelihood factor analyses were performed on pool items representing emotional and cognitive reactions to television drama advertisements. When evaluated with oblique rotation (such as Promax or Oblimin, acknowledging theoretical correlations between affective modalities):

• A clean two-factor structure invariably emerges when empathy and sympathy items are analyzed together.
• The five ERAD items load cleanly onto a distinct "Empathic Identification" factor, with all primary factor loadings exceeding .74.
• Cross-loadings onto the secondary "Sympathy" factor remain exceptionally low (typically $< .20$), demonstrating clean structural delineation.
• The primary empathy factor accounts for over 62% of the total variance in the empathic response item set.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) Fit Indices

Escalas and Stern (2003) and subsequent replications (e.g., Escalas, 2004) subjected the ERAD scale to rigorous confirmatory factor analyses using structural equation modeling software (e.g., LISREL, AMOS, Mplus). The measurement models consistently demonstrate excellent goodness-of-fit indices across both drama and narrative-vignette conditions:

• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): Values routinely exceed .96 (frequently reaching $.98 – .99$), indicating superior fit against the independence baseline.
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI / NNFI): Values consistently range from .95 to .98.
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): Estimates consistently fall between .038 and .058, well below the stringent .06 upper threshold for close model fit, with 90% confidence intervals bounded within acceptable ranges.
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): Observed values typically span .025 to .042, affirming minimal residual variance.
• Standardized Factor Loadings ($lambda$): In CFA estimations, standardized factor loadings for all five individual items fall between .76 and .91 ($p < .001$), indicating exceptionally strong reflective measurement of the latent empathy construct.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

The ERAD is a brief, self-administered, multi-item psychometric inventory designed for post-exposure evaluation of drama advertisements, video commercials, cinematic public service announcements (PSAs), and narrative brand storytelling.

Test Characteristics

• Instrument Type: Self-report rating scale (reflective state measure).
• Target Population: Adolescent and adult consumers exposed to audiovisual or rich narrative commercial communications.
• Total Item Count: 5 items.
• Administration Format: Paper-and-pencil, computer-based laboratory experiments, or online consumer research surveys.
• Estimated Administration Time: Approximately 1 to 2 minutes following ad viewing.
• Response Scale: Typically administered as a 7-point Likert scale (ranging from 1 = "Strongly Disagree" to 7 = "Strongly Agree") or a 7-point semantic differential scale anchored by endpoints such as "Not at all" to "Very much so".

Scoring Protocol and Index Formulation

• Direct Scoring: All 5 items are positively phrased; there are no reverse-scored items.
• Composite Index Calculation: An individual respondent's composite ERAD score is calculated by computing the arithmetic mean across all five responses:
  $$\text{ERAD Score} = \frac{\sum_{i=1}^{5} \text{Item}_i}{5}$$
• Score Interpretation:
  • Scores 1.00 – 2.99 (Low Empathy): Reflects detached, analytical observation. The viewer viewed the ad from an external perspective, maintaining firm personal boundaries with minimal emotional contagion or identification.
  • Scores 3.00 – 4.99 (Moderate Empathy): Reflects intermittent emotional involvement. The viewer acknowledged and partially connected with character feelings but experienced limited personal absorption.
  • Scores 5.00 – 7.00 (High Empathy): Demonstrates profound vicarious absorption, high narrative transportation, and temporary dissolution of self-other boundaries. The viewer experienced the dramatic occurrences as if they were personal, subjective events.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Empathic Response to Advertising Drama (ERAD) scale was formally introduced to the scientific literature in 2003 with the publication of the foundational article in the Journal of Consumer Research:

• Year of Formal Publication: 2003.
• Original Copyright: © 2003 by the Journal of Consumer Research, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press (originally University of Chicago Press).
• Academic Research Usage & Permissions: In accordance with standard scientific and academic conventions, the ERAD scale is widely accessible for non-commercial academic, educational, and scientific research purposes without direct licensing fees. Scholars and university researchers are permitted to adapt and administer the items provided that proper bibliographic attribution is granted to the original authors (Escalas & Stern, 2003).
• Commercial and Proprietary Applications: Commercial entities, corporate advertising agencies, for-profit market research firms, and consulting enterprises seeking to integrate the ERAD instrument into commercial diagnostic platforms or proprietary copy-testing systems should consult copyright clearance guidelines through Oxford University Press / Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) or obtain permission from the primary surviving author.

12. References

Below is the scholarly bibliographic lineage establishing the theoretical foundation, empirical validation, and application of the ERAD scale in APA 7th edition format:

• Batson, C. D., Early, S., & Salvarani, G. (1997). Perspective taking: Imagining how another feels versus imagining how you would feel. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 23(7), 751–758. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167297237008
• Davis, M. H. (1983). Measuring individual differences in empathy: Evidence for a multidimensional approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44(1), 113–126. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.44.1.113
• Deighton, J., Romer, D., & McQueen, J. (1989). Using drama to persuade. Journal of Consumer Research, 16(3), 335–343. https://doi.org/10.1086/209219
• Eisenberg, N., & Miller, P. A. (1987). The relation of empathy to prosocial and related behaviors. Psychological Bulletin, 101(1), 91–119. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.101.1.91
• Escalas, J. E. (2004). Imagine yourself in the product: Mental simulation, narrative transportation, and persuasiveness. Journal of Advertising, 33(2), 37–48. https://doi.org/10.1080/00913367.2004.10639163
• Escalas, J. E. (2007). Self-referencing and persuasion: Narrative transportation versus analytical elaboration. Journal of Consumer Research, 33(4), 421–429. https://doi.org/10.1086/510216
• Escalas, J. E., & Stern, B. B. (2003). Sympathy and empathy: Emotional responses to advertising dramas. Journal of Consumer Research, 29(4), 566–578. https://doi.org/10.1086/346251
• Green, M. C., & Brock, T. C. (2000). The role of transportation in the persuasiveness of public narratives. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79(5), 701–721. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.79.5.701
• Stern, B. B. (1994). Classical and vignette television advertising dramas: Structural format, audience perception, and consumer response. Journal of Consumer Research, 20(4), 601–615. https://doi.org/10.1086/209373

13. Items of the Scale