Cultures of the soul: spiritual beliefs about organ donation in China and the United States

Spiritual beliefs shape ideas about the meaning of life, the moment of death, and the care that must be taken to deliver the body of the loved one to the spiritual realm. This study investigated spiritual beliefs about organ donation for participants in China (n = 364) and the United States (n = 384). Results showed that spiritual connection with the transplant recipient, spiritual concern about removing organs, and attitudes toward organ donation significantly predicted willingness to become an organ donor for participants in both countries. Americans reported being significantly more religious compared to Chinese. However, altruism and religiosity were not significant predictors of willingness to donate organs. Chinese participants showed significantly higher levels of spiritual connection with the potential recipient of transplanted organs. Even so, Chinese participants exhibited more reluctance to become organ donors compared to Americans. Gender differences in organ donation behaviors are also reported. The study discusses the implications of the findings for structuring organ procurement campaigns that will address spiritual beliefs about organ donation.     

Willingness to participate in organ donation among black Seventh-Day Adventist college students

OBJECTIVE AND PARTICIPANTS: The authors studied a group of black and white Seventh-Day Adventist (SDA) college students (N = 334) to compare the power of religious socialization with racial socialization. METHODS: The authors compared the levels of willingness to donate organs between black and nonblack students in an availability sample. RESULTS: Black SDA college students were significantly more likely than white SDA students or SDA students of other races to perceive racism in the healthcare system and to believe that doctors would not make heroic efforts to save their lives if they knew they were organ donors; they were 66.9% less likely to donate organs than were white SDA students or SDA students of other races. CONCLUSIONS: Despite a common religion with a purposive indoctrination, the racial socialization of black SDA students exerted a stronger influence on willingness to participate in organ donation than did that of white students and students of other races within this religion.     

Human Organ Donation: Does Knowledge Correlate with Intention?

Abstract

One increasing form of social distress in the USA today is the increasing number of ill Americans who die while awaiting a life-saving organ (Satel, 2008). While organ donation is a life saving practice supported by 95 per cent of Americans, only half of the U.S. population is registered to donate organs. To explore this discrepancy between attitudes and behaviors relating to organ donation, 135 New Yorkers completed an anonymous 25-item survey to assess individuals' accurate knowledge of organ donation and their organ donor practices. Results support the researchers' two hypotheses: (a) individuals who possess more accurate information about organ donation practices are more likely to be organ donors (r=.225, p<.01) and (b) are more likely to have had experience with organ donation, either directly or indirectly (r =.247, p <.01). These findings have implications for the organ donation community, specifically the focus of campaigns that seek to increase the number of registered organ donors.     

Exploring the Use of the Stages of Change Model to Increase Organ Donations Among African Americans

Abstract

The success of organ transplants is affected by the degree of antigen match between donor and recipient. With organ transplants among African Americans, finding a good antigen match is difficult. While the consent rate for organ donations among Caucasians is 50%, this rate among African Americans is only 12%. The resulting ratio of donors to “recipients” is 1 to 9 in African Americans. The majority of organs received by African Americans come from Caucasian donors, thereby reducing the probability of an antigen match and increasing the probability of organ rejection. These circumstances could be improved if the organ donation rate eamong African Americans was increased. There is some empirical support for the theory that behavior change occurs through identifiable stages. This paper presents evidence for the construct validity of a stage of change measure suitable for use in designing and evaluating attempts to promote organ donations in the African American community. Use of this measure also permits clinicians to assess how receptive a client will be to organ donation promotional material. Use of this measure offers the possibility of refining approaches to organ donations among African Americans. Increases in the donor rate will result in a larger pool of antigen compatible organs in this subpopulation.     

Willingness to Participate in Organ Donation Among Black Seventh-Day Adventist College Students

Objective and Participants: The authors studied a group of black and white Seventh-Day Adventist (SDA) college students (N = 334) to compare the power of religious socialization with racial socialization. Methods: The authors compared the levels of willingness to donate organs between black and nonblack students in an availability sample. Results: Black SDA college students were significantly more likely than white SDA students or SDA students of other races to perceive racism in the healthcare system and to believe that doctors would not make heroic efforts to save their lives if they knew they were organ donors; they were 66.9% less likely to donate organs than were white SDA students or SDA students of other races. Conclusions: Despite a common religion with a purposive indoctrination, the racial socialization of black SDA students exerted a stronger influence on willingness to participate in organ donation than did that of white students and students of other races within this religion.     

Reducing Public Misinformation About Organ Donation: An Experimental Intervention

Abstract

The shortage of life-saving human organs for transplantation today is a growing and international problem. A recent survey in this Journal found that people with “more accurate information about organ donation practices are more likely to be organ donors (r= .225, p< .01)” (Nickols, Stack, Viviano, & Whitney, 2008, p. 240). How much can a factual 20-minute message about organ donation significantly increase people's knowledge and pro-donation behavior? In this field experiment, 101 students in two urban colleges completed a one-page survey before and after an expert's 20-minute message. The survey assessed participants' knowledge about organ donation from 0 (low) to 40 (high), biodata, self-reported experiences, and behavior in the past (registered organ donor) and future (consider becoming a donor). As hypothesized: (1) Pre-message knowledge about organ donation was moderate (mean = 21.8 on the 0-40 scale), and rose significantly after the message (mean = 28.6, p < .01). (2) This knowledge positively correlated with consideration to register in the future as an organ donor (r = +.41; p < .001 post-presentation). (3) However, there was no significant correlation of prior donor registration with knowledge prior to the message (r = +.08) or after the message (r = +.04). From these findings, it seems a brief FAQ fact-sheet or DVD would be highly useful to increase people's accurate knowledge about donations.     

How Sunday, price, and social norms influence donation behaviour

We describe a natural field experiment investigating donation behaviour. The setting was an art gallery where donations could be deposited into a transparent box in the foyer. Two aspects of the donation environment were manipulated: signs on the donation box and the initial contents of the box. We used three sign treatments: a control with no sign, a sign that thanked donors, and a sign that indicated donations would be matched. We used two initial contents treatments: one with relatively little money ($50) and one with four times as much. The average donation per donor was significantly larger in the $200 treatments but this was offset by a decrease in the propensity to donate. In the matching treatments donations were significantly larger both at the per donor and per visitor level. A control variable turned out to have the largest influence on donation behaviour: the day of the week. The average donation per visitor was 51% higher on Sundays, when compared to every other day of the week.     

Will You Trust Me?: How Individual American Donors Respond to Informational Signals Regarding Local and Global Humanitarian Charities

When making charitable donations, individuals would like to have some assurance that their resources will be used appropriately, but they do not necessarily have the time to research charities thoroughly. Charities have thus joined voluntary regulatory programs to signal trustworthiness and good governance. We conduct a survey experiment to explore if individual donors in the United States are more willing to give to a charity participating in a voluntary regulatory program. Because voluntary programs vary in their institutional design, we further test whether the provision of third-party auditing (to ensure that charities abide by program rules and obligations) enhances donor confidence in the voluntary program. Finally, we explore whether individuals seek to circumvent information problems by donating to local charities as opposed to overseas charities. We find that charity membership in a voluntary program does not influence people’s willingness to donate significantly, but that location of operations is significant.     

The more you know,the more you give: Influence of online disclosure on European community foundations' donations

Competition is high in the charitable contributions market, and donors demand to know how nonprofit organizations use the money they receive. In scrutinizing the variables that affect the capacity of nonprofits to attract donations, previous research has highlighted the positive influence of the amount of financial and performance information that nonprofits disclose through their websites. This study explored whether the depth of the organizations' online disclosures also affects these donations. In line with existing studies on regression‐based economic models of giving, this study considered community foundations—focusing on the United Kingdom and Italy—and its results indicated that managing the depth of the information provided through financial reports can influence donors' sensitivity and willingness to donate.     

On time and money donations

This paper investigates the importance of two forms of ‘impure’ altruism (“warm glow” and reputational concerns) as potential determinants of both time and money gifts. We first develop a comprehensive behavioral model which accounts for both types of donations, as well as for decisions about domestic and market hours of work. We then provide an empirical test of these drivers for giving using survey data for Italy. Results suggest that, according to the theoretical predictions, proxies for ‘impure’ altruism are important determinants of donations. Moreover, the unobservable determinants driving money and time donations are positively correlated, suggesting a certain degree of complementarity between the two decisions. Our findings also stress the importance of considering a behavioral model accounting for a full set of time and income uses to better characterize individual decisions to donate.     

Does the sense of the geographic proximity of a requester influence donation? Three evaluations in field studies

It has been reported that familiarity or incidental similarities with a stranger influenced an individual’s behavior. However, the effect of the sense of geographical proximity believing that someone comes from the same area that somebody has never been examined. Three field experiments examined this effect on donations to humanitarian organizations. In the first study, participants were asked by a confederate to donate food products to a humanitarian organization. In Study 2, participants were asked by confederates to donate money for children. In Study 3, donation boxes were displayed in bakeries with a message that invited customers to donate money for children. In all the studies, participants were led to believe that they would be helping people in need or people who live in their national or local geographic area. Results showed that donations were higher in the geographical proximity condition. This “neighborhood effect” was discussed.     

Warm glow of giving collectively – An experimental study

We report on an experiment to test for a warm glow of giving collectively. Comparing subjects’ affective state before and after the experiment, we find that individual charitable donations create a feeling of warm glow while collective donations do not. Proposing to donate the full endowment collectively improves subjects’ affective state significantly, though the behavioral data suggests that this result cannot be explained by the notion of expressive voting. We also find that subjects who consider Kant’s Categorical Imperative to be an important guideline for individual decisions are more likely to donate the full endowment to charity. This result supports the notion of Kantian thinking as an independent factor explaining cooperative behavior (Roemer, 2014).     

Ex-post blindness as excuse? The effect of information disclosure on giving

People passing by beggars without leaving a penny are not necessarily pure money-maximizers. In the world of sincere and dishonest recipients, some donors might anticipate the disutility they will suffer at the moment they realize their help is misdirected and reduce their willingness to donate to avoid these psychological costs. I employ a dictator game with ex-ante uncertainty about recipient’s endowment and requests from recipients to study how donors react to ex-post revelation of recipient’s type. I observe no difference in donations with and without ex-post information about recipient’s endowment. However, if donors could choose if they want to receive such information themselves, nearly a third of dictators choose to remain ignorant. Those dictators who choose to ex-post reveal the endowment of the recipient give significantly more.     

Examining the role of cognitive dissonance in crisis fundraising

Fundraising scholarship has focused on the application of public relations theory to the process particularly in exploring the predictive power in applying relationship management theory to the non-profit organization–donor relationship. However, people often are impacted by catastrophic events and want to donate to relief efforts even though they may not be connected to the region. A survey of two American Red Cross chapters’ donors revealed that individuals who contributed to the December 2004 tsunami relief efforts were more likely to experience feelings of cognitive dissonance than non-donors, and their donations resulted in a consonance restoration. These results support an argument for non-profits, particularly those in crisis response, to have an active crisis communication plan in place that deals not only with responding to the event but also having a proactive plan established to publicize how to donate to relief efforts. Highlighting the consonance restoration, non-profits should also discuss the positive aspects of donating to their efforts, such as the work being done for the disaster victims.     

The antecedents of donor commitment to voluntary organizations

The past decade has seen a rapid growth in the number of regular or so‐called committed giving schemes. Charities have been increasingly eager to solicit donors onto a low‐value monthly donation, collected automatically from their bank account or credit card. Although the initial costs of donor acquisition are higher than for cash donations, charities find that committed givers are less likely to lapse and therefore offer substantially higher lifetime values over time. In this article, we examine to what extent these individuals are truly committed, that is, whether they are more committed than occasional cash givers and the factors that might drive that commitment. The results of a series of ten focus groups conducted on behalf of five large national charities are reported and a model of the antecedents of commitment hypothesized. Implications for fundraising strategy are explored.     

Negative reciprocity and its relation to anger-like emotions in identity-homogeneous and -heterogeneous groups

Several studies have shown that social identity fosters the provision of public goods and enhances the willingness to reciprocate the cooperative behavior of group members. Nonetheless, the question of how social identity affects negative reciprocity in identity-homogeneous and -heterogeneous groups has only received little attention. Consequently, we seek to fill this gap by examining whether social identity affects individuals’ willingness to sanction deviating group members in a public good context. Moreover, we devote particular attention to the role of anger-like emotions in negative reciprocity. To test our hypotheses, we employ one-shot public good games in a strategy method with punishment opportunity and induced social identity. Our results indicate that members of identity-homogeneous groups are prone to reveal less negative reciprocity than identity-heterogeneous groups when they face contributions smaller than their own. We also find that anger-like emotions much more strongly influence punishment behavior when individuals are matched with members of different identities than in identity-homogenous groups. These findings contribute to an increased understanding of the nature of social identity and its impact on reciprocity, improving economists’ ability to predict behavior while taking emotions into consideration.     

Majority size and conformity behavior in charitable giving: Field evidence from a donation-based crowdfunding platform in Japan

A charitable donor typically imitates the majority contribution of other donors. This study examines the relationships between majority size and this so-called donor’s conformity behavior, by empirically investigating the impacts of multiple earlier donations on the donation of a subsequent donor to JapanGiving, a donation-based crowdfunding platform in Japan. This analysis is possible because the platform’s webpage displays the previous donation amounts in chronological order, thus allowing us to examine the modal amount of more recent donations. By using data on 9989 actual donations, our dynamic panel analysis suggests that when the number of most recent continuous modal donations increases, the likelihood that a subsequent donor matches the modal amount increases. This result supports the notion that a donor’s conformity behavior is more likely to occur when a greater proportion of other donors give a similar amount. Furthermore, the effects of continuous modal donations are strongly observed for low monetary ranges. We interpret that initiating further cooperation among a large number of less cooperative other donors would become harder, or individuals would obtain an excuse for less cooperation due to the others’ behaviors. Finally, we discuss how our findings connect economic studies of charity and social psychology studies of conformity and could help improve the effectiveness of fundraising by charities.     

Motivational crowding out effects in charitable giving: Experimental evidence

This paper tests motivational crowding out in the domain of charitable giving. A novelty is that our experiment isolates alternative explanations for the decline of giving, such as strategic considerations of decision-makers. Moreover, preference elicitation allows us to focus on the reaction of donors characterized by different degrees of intrinsic motivation. In the charitable-giving setting subjects donate money to the German “Red Cross” in two consecutive donations. The first dictator game is modified, i.e., donors face with equal probability an ex post reimbursement or a subsequent payment. The second game is a standard dictator game. We find that after an ex post change in the price of giving of the first donation, substantially more donors with a high degree of intrinsic motivation decrease donations than subjects with a low degree of intrinsic motivation and donors who did not experience a price effect. In a replication study we find support for these results for subjects who have previously participated in at least one economic experiment.     

Changing college student perceptions and participation in organ donation: A classroom and service learning intervention

Each day an average of 18 people die from the lack of available organs for transplantation and the demand for organ, eye and tissue donation continues to vastly exceed the number of available donors. The single most effective method in addressing this issue remains programmatic efforts to encourage and support organ donation. The purpose of this article is to introduce a creative and comprehensive approach to enhance awareness, participation and organ donor registry among young adults. The programmatic intervention utilized a service learning model within a Freshman Year Seminar course focused on organ donation. The partnership between classroom-based curriculum and experiential learning served to increase knowledge and enhance positive attitudes toward organ donation, as measured by pre-post tests and student reflections in portfolio assessments. The number of organ donor registrants was increased as a result of student outreach activities. Results are discussed in terms of implications for increasing donation.     

Disasters,donations, and tax law changes: Disentangling effects on subjective well-being by exploiting a natural experiment

This study investigates (i) whether an increase in donations in the aftermath of disasters can mitigate the negative effects on subjective well-being (SWB), and if so, (ii) whether policy measures, such as tax law changes, can amplify this mitigating effect by providing further incentives for donations. To analyze these questions, we use data on the recent, impactful triple disaster on March 11, 2011 in Japan (3–11). Coincidentally, only three months after the disaster, a long-planned change in tax law was put into effect that allows higher tax deductions for charitable donations. Applying a moderated mediation analysis to a unique dataset, we are able to disentangle the total rise of donations into positive effects that are caused by the disaster itself and positive effects that are caused by the recent change in the Japanese tax law. The results of our study are as follows: First, we show that about 30% of the direct negative effect of 3–11 on SWB is mediated and mitigated by donations. Second, we show that the change in taxation law could have further mitigated the negative SWB effects of 3–11, if more people had been aware of it. However, since a large majority of the Japanese public had not even been aware of the tax law change, potential mitigating effects by increased donations have not been realized. As for policy implications, our results show that governments can create incentives for donations that not only support disaster reconstruction, but also mitigate the negative SWB effects of disasters.