The effects of empathy on search efforts for missing persons

Abstract

People have difficulty sighting missing persons, partially because the task requires people's limited cognitive resources. We examined whether empathy increases search behaviors and performance. We manipulated empathy felt toward a formerly (E1) and actively (E2) missing person. We measured willingness to volunteer to search for missing people in general (E1) and the actively missing person (E2). We measured search performance (E1) and time spent studying the missing person's poster (E2).The empathy manipulation affected willingness to search for the actively missing person (E2, H4), but not missing people in general (E1, H1). The empathy manipulation did not impact search behavior: effort toward searching (E1, H2 & 3) or time spent studying a missing persons poster (E2, H5). We reasoned that if empathy increased search behaviors, it could be induced in actual missing persons cases to increase recovery rates, but we found little evidence to support empathy as an effective intervention.