Increasing the willingness to participate in organ donation through humorous health communication: (Quasi-) experimental evidence

Abstract

Increasing people’s willingness to donate organs after their death requires effective communication strategies. In two preregistered studies, we assessed whether humorous entertainment education formats on organ donation elicit positive effects on knowledge, fears, attitudes, and behavioral intentions–both immediately after the treatment and four weeks later. We test whether perceived funniness mediates expected effects on attitudes and intentions. Study 1 is a quasi-experiment which uses a live medical comedy show (N = 3,964) as an entertainment education format, which either contained or did not contain information about organ donation. Study 2, a lab experiment, tests humor’s causal effect in a pre-post design with a control group (N = 144) in which the same content was provided in either a humorous or non-humorous way in an audio podcast. Results showed that humorous interventions per se were not more effective than neutral information, but that informing people about organ donation in general increased donation intentions, attitudes, and knowledge. However, humorous interventions were especially effective in reducing fears related to organ donation. The findings are discussed regarding the opportunities for sensitive health communication through entertainment education formats, psychological processes that humor triggers, and humor’s role in health communication formats.

Humor and Fear—Two Sides of the Same Coin?: Experimental Evidence on Humor Appeals in Health Communication Related to Childhood Vaccination

“…For example, the use of humor in health communication about fear-related topics might be successful, because the tailored communication strategies using humor can be used to work with—rather than against—these underlying fears ( 34 ). In contrast to the results of this study, it has been shown that humorous elements incorporated into health communication might be beneficial for other topics which are also related to actions, such as organ donation ( 37 , 38 ). Among psychological coping strategies—beyond denial, defensive avoidance, and reactance—humor has a promising advantage: previous research has validated that the use of humor supports people in coping with stress, anxiety, and fear ( 39 ), which are all potential responses to fear appeals ( 40 ).…”

Data_Sheet_1.PDF

“…For example, the use of humor in health communication about fear-related topics might be successful, because the tailored communication strategies using humor can be used to work with-rather than against-these underlying fears (34). In contrast to the results of this study, it has been shown that humorous elements incorporated into health communication might be beneficial for other topics which are also related to actions, such as organ donation (37,38). Among psychological coping strategies-beyond denial, defensive avoidance, and reactance-humor has a promising advantage: previous research has validated that the use of humor supports people in coping with stress, anxiety, and fear (39), which are all potential responses to fear appeals (40).…”

Was das Unterhaltungsfernsehen zur Vermittlung von medizinischem Wissen an Studierende und Laien beitragen kann – Sensibilisierung für seltene Erkrankungen

“…Auch die Wirksamkeit der humorvollen Vermittlung im Liveprogramm von Eckart von Hirschhausen wurde im Kontrollgruppendesign untersucht. Hier ging es speziell um die Bereitschaft zur Organspende [33,34]. International erfährt die Rolle von Humor in der Wissensvermittlung in Form von Kurzvortragsturnieren (Science-Slams), Serien und Bühnenshows in der Fachliteratur ebenfalls eine neue Wertschätzung [35].…”