Abstract
Understanding the impact of personal traits on prosocial behavior becomes vital for the development of effective advertising messages to the target audience. Hence, this exploratory study was developed to contribute to a better understanding of the motivations of actual and potential blood donors, by analyzing and comparing the effect of some of the most prominent personal traits for predicting or explaining prosocial behavior (blood donation). 125 participants from generation Y answered an online survey that besides asking about their blood donation intention also pertained to establish a relation with their personality traits by considering: attribution theory, self-image, social responsibility, altruism, social influence, and empathy. We also take into consideration the possible effect of framing.According to our findings, blood donors are positively influenced to donate blood by self-image and internal attribution. On the other hand, nondonors are only positively influenced by self-image.
Highlights
Despite an increase of reported blood donations in recent years, a severe shortage of donated blood remains a critical issue (World Health Organization, June 2017)
In order to evaluate the possible impact of personality traits with respect to each the already mentioned theories on blood donation intention two binominal logistic regression model were employed that included blood donation intention as dependent variable, social influence index, self-concept score, social responsibility score, internal and external attribution scores, and empathy and altruism scores as predictors
For Gen Y donors, this type of motivational appeal may not be suitable, as neither existing nor potentially new donors appear to be motivated by altruism
Summary
Despite an increase of reported blood donations in recent years, a severe shortage of donated blood remains a critical issue (World Health Organization, June 2017). In many countries more than 50% of blood supply is collected from family/replacement or paid donors, which is why recently the World Health Organization, the International Federation of Red Cross and the Red Crescent Societies have set the ambitious aim to achieve 100% voluntary blood donation. Particular consideration is necessary to increase the percentage of voluntary, or un-paid, donations, as currently only represents 30% of the global blood supply. This is a key issue because for every donation of blood three lives can be saved. Previous research identified younger donors, donors pertaining to “Gen Y”, as a difficult segment who are difficult to acquire and exhibit low retention rates (Russell-Bennett, Hartel, Russell, & Previte, 2012). It is appropriate to focus on this segment
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