Blood donors' helping behavior is driven by warm glow: more evidence for the blood donor benevolence hypothesis

Ferguson, Eamonn; Taylor, Michael D.; Keatley, David; Flynn, Niall; Lawrence, Claire

doi:10.1111/j.1537-2995.2011.03557.x

Cited by 82 publications

(111 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…This higher non-health philanthropy in opt-in countries should influence donation via the consent process only. In support of this contention there is evidence to suggest that health based philanthropy (for example, blood and potentially organ donation) is not related to non-health based philanthropy [25-27]. However, while both deceased and living donation rates may be viewed as altruistic, living donation is a more definitive altruistic act – it is at a cost to the donor, voluntary, and a benefit to the recipient (there is no cost to the donor for deceased donations) [28].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

An international comparison of deceased and living organ donation/transplant rates in opt-in and opt-out systems: a panel study

Shepherd

O’Carroll

Ferguson

2014

BMC Med

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183

166

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BackgroundPolicy decisions about opt-in and opt-out consent for organ donation are based on limited evidence. To fill this gap we investigated the difference between deceased and living organ donation rates in opt-in and opt-out consent systems across a 13 year period. We controlled for extensive covariates and estimated the causal effect of consent with instrumental variables analysis.MethodThis panel study used secondary data analysis to compare organ donor and transplant rates in 48 countries that had either opt-in or opt-out consent. Organ donation data were obtained over a 13-year period between 2000 and 2012. The main outcome measures were the number of donors, number of transplants per organ and total number (deceased plus living) of kidneys and livers transplanted. The role of consent on donor and transplant rates was assessed using multilevel modeling and the causal effect estimated with instrumental variables analysis.ResultsDeceased donor rates (per-million population) were higher in opt-out (M = 14.24) than opt-in consent countries (M = 9.98; Β = −4.27, 95% confidence interval (CI) = −8.08, −0.45, P = .029). However, the number of living donors was higher in opt-in (M = 9.36) than opt-out countries (M = 5.49; B = 3.86, 95% CI = 1.16, 6.56, P = .006). Importantly, the total number of kidneys transplanted (deceased plus living) was higher in opt-out (M = 28.32) than opt-in countries (M = 22.43; B = −5.89, 95% CI = −11.60, −0.17, P = .044). Similarly, the total number of livers transplanted was higher in opt-out (M = 11.26) than opt-in countries (M = 7.53; B = −3.73, 95% CI = −7.47, 0.01, P = .051). Instrumental variables analysis suggested that the effect of opt-in versus opt-out consent on the difference between deceased and living donor rates is causal.ConclusionsWhile the number of deceased donors is higher than the number of living donors, opt-out consent leads to a relative increase in the total number of livers and kidneys transplanted.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

An international comparison of deceased and living organ donation/transplant rates in opt-in and opt-out systems: a panel study

Shepherd

O’Carroll

Ferguson

2014

BMC Med

Self Cite

183

166

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“…As such, we argue that it is important to assess the role of positive emotions on health behaviors. Health research has demonstrated the role of positive emotions on helping-based health behaviors, such as blood (Ferguson, Taylor, Keatley, Flynn, & Lawrence, 2012) and organ donation (O'Carroll, Foster, McGeechan, Sandford, & Ferguson, 2011). However, relative to research on negative emotions there is relatively little research assessing the role of positive emotions on other forms of health behaviors (for exceptions, see Mack et al, 2015;Onwezen et al, 2014).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Social-Cognitive and Emotional Factors on Exclusive Breastfeeding Duration

2017

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“…While a number of mechanisms (e.g., reciprocity, kin selection) have been suggested to explain cooperation [1], these do not explain cooperation between anonymous strangers where the possibility for reciprocity is absent, such as in lab based one-shot economic games or blood donation [2]–[3].To account for cooperation in these contexts researchers have focused on the role of intuitive and emotional processes [2], [4]. One line of research has extended the dual systems framework of system 1 (fast, intuitive, automatic, effortless, emotional) and system 2 (slow, reflective, effortful, proactive and unemotional: [5]) to cooperation [6].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fast to Forgive, Slow to Retaliate: Intuitive Responses in the Ultimatum Game Depend on the Degree of Unfairness

et al. 2014

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Evolutionary accounts have difficulty explaining why people cooperate with anonymous strangers they will never meet. Recently models, focusing on emotional processing, have been proposed as a potential explanation, with attention focusing on a dual systems approach based on system 1 (fast, intuitive, automatic, effortless, and emotional) and system 2 (slow, reflective, effortful, proactive and unemotional). Evidence shows that when cooperation is salient, people are fast (system 1) to cooperate, but with longer delays (system 2) they show greed. This is interpreted within the framework of the social heuristic hypothesis (SHH), whereby people overgeneralize potentially advantageous intuitively learnt and internalization social norms to ‘atypical’ situations. We extend this to explore intuitive reactions to unfairness by integrating the SHH with the ‘fast to forgive, slow to anger’ (FFSA) heuristic. This suggests that it is advantageous to be prosocial when facing uncertainty. We propose that whether or not someone intuitively shows prosociality (cooperation) or retaliation is moderated by the degree (certainty) of unfairness. People should intuitively cooperate when facing mild levels of unfairness (fast to forgive) but when given longer to decide about another's mild level of unfairness should retaliate (slow to anger). However, when facing severe levels of unfairness, the intuitive response is always retaliation. We test this using a series of one-shot ultimatum games and manipulate level of offer unfairness (50:50 60:40, 70:30, 80:20, 90:10) and enforced time delays prior to responding (1s, 2s, 8s, 15s). We also measure decision times to make responses after the time delays. The results show that when facing mildly unfair offers (60:40) people are fast (intuitive) to cooperate but with longer delays reject these mildly unfair offers: ‘fast to forgive, and slow to retaliate’. However, for severely unfair offers (90:10) the intuitive and fast response is to always reject.

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Blood donors' helping behavior is driven by warm glow: more evidence for the blood donor benevolence hypothesis

Abstract: This paper offers objective behavioral evidence that blood donors' charitable giving and blood donation, compared to non-blood donors, is more strongly motivated by warm glow. This provides additional support for the benevolence hypothesis of blood donation.

Cited by 82 publications

References 37 publications

An international comparison of deceased and living organ donation/transplant rates in opt-in and opt-out systems: a panel study

An international comparison of deceased and living organ donation/transplant rates in opt-in and opt-out systems: a panel study

The Role of Social-Cognitive and Emotional Factors on Exclusive Breastfeeding Duration

Fast to Forgive, Slow to Retaliate: Intuitive Responses in the Ultimatum Game Depend on the Degree of Unfairness

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