Mortality salience influences attitudes and information-seeking behavior related to organ donation

Abstract

Organ donation rates in the United States are not nearly high enough to cover the needs of people on the transplant waiting lists. Thus, it is important to understand the barriers for potential organ donors, and find contexts when persuasive efforts can be most successful. Using terror management theory as a framework, the present study employed an experimental design in which participants read narratives in which a character died or experienced pain as a manipulation of mortality salience. Mortality salience predicted death thought accessibility, and that was associated with more positive attitudes toward organ donation and more information-seeking behavior regarding organ donation. Results also suggest that organ donation may be one avenue to deal with death-related anxiety, as a form of worldview defense. Our findings have implications for health campaigns and indicate that narrative-based messages that remind people of their mortality may be effective in persuading people to become organ donors.

Keywords:

• Organ donation
• Narrative persuasion
• Terror management theory
• Mortality salience
• Health campaigns

Disclaimer statements

Contributors Parul Jain and Morgan Ellithorpe have played a role in this research.

Funding None.

Conflicts of interest None.

Ethics approval The paper received ethical approval from The Ohio State University and Washington State University.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Parul Jain

Author information

Dr Parul Jain (PhD, The Ohio State University) is currently an assistant professor in the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University in Athens, OH. Her research interests are in the areas of health communication, media effects and processes relative to health attitudes and behavior, and persuasion.

Morgan E. Ellithorpe

Dr Morgan E. Ellithorpe is currently the Martin Fishbein Postdoctoral Fellow in the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. She received her PhD in Communication from Ohio State University in 2015. Her research interests are in the areas of media psychology and media effects, specifically in health and risk communication, stereotyping and prejudice, and media violence.