Framing Posthumous Organ Donation in Terms of Reciprocity: What Are the Emotional Consequences?

Abstract

Posthumous organ donation was framed in terms of reciprocity by asking young participants to respond to another person who was or was not registered as an organ donor, while simultaneously manipulating participants' own registration status. Participants were additionally required to adopt the perspective of a potential donor or recipient of organs. The influence of these variables on self-reported anger, fear, pity, guilt, gratitude, and positive self-feelings is systematically described. The results illustrate the relative independence of self-preservational and altruistic motives in organ donation. Practical implications are discussed.

Notes

¹Randomization was approached by means of the following procedure. First, we aimed at giving all students of a particular class an equal chance of being assigned to one of the 24 different conditions. In particular, we visited each classroom with a stack of all 24 versions of the questionnaires (representing the different conditions), ordered in an arbitrary way. Dependent on the number of expected students, versions were removed or added to the stack. The final stack was used to distribute the questionnaires while walking in an arbitrary way through the classroom. We have no reason to expect a relation between seating arrangements and likelihood of receiving a particular version of the questionnaire/condition.

²To measure the emotions, the following Dutch words were used: bang, zenuwachtig, and gespannen to measure fear; boos, irritatie, and verontwaardiging to measure anger; and trots, zelf-vertrouwen, en blijdschap to measure positive self-feelings. Gratitude is the English translation of dankbaarheid, and guilt is the translation of schuld.

³An analysis of variance on registration intentions resulted in an interaction between perspective and other's registration status, F(1, 359) = 6.80, p < .01, partial η² = .02, revealing that the weakest intentions were reported when participants adopting a donor perspective had been previously exposed to individuals who were not willing to donate themselves (M = 3.37, SD = 1.15; the other three means were M = 3.80, SD = 1.03; M = 3.62, SD = 1.09; and M = 3.75, SD = 1.15, respectively). A three-way interaction, F(1, 359) = 5.01, p < .05, partial η² = .01, suggested that this was especially the case for male individuals.

Note. The influence of other's registration status is partialled out. Coefficients are partial correlations.

^a df = 99.

^b df = 98.

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. †p < .10.

⁴This may also explain why we did not find correlations between reported emotions and intentions to actually register as a donor for participants adopting a recipient perspective. In particular, these participants may have been too concerned with their own well-being to reflect seriously on becoming an organ donor in real life or to use their previous emotions as a source of information in decision making. In contrast, the donor perspective invited participants from the start to think and feel in terms of helping others. Thus, in this condition the pattern of correlations suggested that registration intention may be dependent on feelings of pity, guilt, and gratitude.