Students who were listening to this particular interview were given a letter asking the student to share lecture notes and meet with her. The experimenters changed the level of empathy by telling one group to try to focus on how she was feeling (high empathy level) and the other group not to be concerned with that (low empathy level). The experimenters also varied the cost of not helping: the high cost group was told that Carol would be in their psychology class after returning to school and the low cost group believed she would finish the class at home.
Students who attended this particular interview were asked to share their lecture notes and meet with a student. The researchers altered empathy levels by telling one group to concentrate on how the student was feeling (high empathy) and the other not to be concerned about it (low empathy). Furthermore, the cost of not assisting was changed: the high-cost group believed the student would be in their psychology class after returning to school, while the low-cost group thought she would complete the class at home.