Creating Persuasive Messages Advocating Organ Donation

Abstract

Most people state that they would be willing to be organ donors, however only a small percentage of the population has actually signed an organ donor card. These studies focused on persuasive messages that encourage people to sign organ donor cards. In the first study, people reported their attitudes and knowledge involving organ donation. Results indicated that donor card signing was related to overall knowledge about donation. When only considering those people with positive attitudes toward organ donation, their overall knowledge about donation explained their willingness to sign organ donor cards. In the second study, people read a message involving organ donation before they were asked to sign an organ donor card. The content of the message (i.e., narrative vs. statistics) and the affect of the message (i.e., humorous vs. sad) were manipulated. Results indicated that narrative messages were more effective than statistical messages. Additionally, humorous messages were more effective than sad messages.

Keywords:

• Organ Donation
• Persuasive Messages
• Theory of Reasoned Action

Notes

1. A post hoc analysis was computed to ascertain which misconceptions represented the largest barriers to signing a donor card. Utilizing logistic regression, responses from the individual knowledge questions served as the IVs, and signing status was the DV. Results indicated that three of the seven questions were significant predictors of signing behavior. Signers correctly answered questions dealing with the nature of brain death (χ ²=5.72, p<0.01), concerns over hospital care (χ ²=6.36, p<0.01), and religious views on organ donation (χ ²=6.84, p<0.01) at a significantly higher percentage than did non-signers. A test of the fit of this model revealed no significant errors (χ ²=4.47, p>0.05).

2. For scripts of the five pro-organ donation messages, please contact the first author.

3. A possible limitation to the results of this study is the lack of control between the sad messages and the humorous messages. As stated previously, the sad messages used different scripts than the humorous messages. The reason for this was because we found it difficult to transform the sad story into one that was funny, or make the funny story sad. As a result we decided not to attempt to keep the stories consistent but instead to keep their quality, length, and characteristics of the main characters consistent. This enters the possibility of a confounding variable into the study. However, while the stories in the scripts differed, the information contained in each script (e.g., the myths addressed in each script was the same as was the statistical information provided), the length of each script (each being one page), and the pertinent characteristics of the characters (age and student status) was consistent throughout. Additionally, the analysis to see if the participants identified with one message over the other revealed no significant differences. This led us to believe that our attempts at control were somewhat successful.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Keith Weber

Keith Weber (EdD, West Virginia University, 1998) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at West Virginia University 108 Armstrong Hall, Morgantown, WV 26506, USA (Tel: [phone]; Email: [email protected])

Matthew M. Martin

Matthew M. Martin (PhD, Kent State University, 1992) is a Professor and the Chair of the Department of Communication Studies at West Virginia University

Members of COMM 401

Members of Comm 401 include Ammary Neyal, Teresa Binkowski, Vincent Cicchirillo, Lauren Hill, Samantha Hogan, Smitha Katragadda, Brandon Lester, John McElroy, Maren McNeill, Julianna Myers, Andrea Nardello, John Nostrand, Michael O'Donnell, Daniel Phares, Joseph Raimato, Mike Robinette, Annabelle Skaggs, and Glenn Weeks

Michael Corrigan

Michael Corrigan (EdD, West Virginia University, 2004) is an Assistant Professor in the Communication Department at Edgewood College