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Help Is in Your Blood—Incentive to “Double Altruism” Resolves the Plasma Donation Paradox

Blood donation is considered as one of the purest forms of altruism. Plasma donation, in contrast, despite being a similar process, is mostly a paid activity in which donors are compensated for their contribution to the production of therapeutic preparations. This creates a so-called “plasma paradox...

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Autores principales: Gyuris, Petra, Gáspár, Baksa Gergely, Birkás, Béla, Csókási, Krisztina, Kocsor, Ferenc
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8458749/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34566745
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.653848
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author Gyuris, Petra
Gáspár, Baksa Gergely
Birkás, Béla
Csókási, Krisztina
Kocsor, Ferenc
author_facet Gyuris, Petra
Gáspár, Baksa Gergely
Birkás, Béla
Csókási, Krisztina
Kocsor, Ferenc
author_sort Gyuris, Petra
collection PubMed
description Blood donation is considered as one of the purest forms of altruism. Plasma donation, in contrast, despite being a similar process, is mostly a paid activity in which donors are compensated for their contribution to the production of therapeutic preparations. This creates a so-called “plasma paradox:” If remuneration is promised for a socially useful effort, volunteers with altruistic motives might be deterred. At the same time, regular plasma donors who pursue the monetary benefits of donation might drop out if remuneration stops. The same controversy can be caught in the messages of most plasma donation companies as well: They promise a monetary reward (MR), and at the same time, highlight the altruistic component of donation. In this study, we tested the assumption that emphasizing the social significance enhances the willingness to donate blood plasma more effectively than either MR or the combination of these two incentives. This had to be rejected since there was no significant difference between the three scenarios. Furthermore, we also hypothesized that individuals might be more motivated to donate plasma if there is a possibility of offering an MR toward other socially beneficial aims. We found an increased willingness to donate in scenarios enabling “double altruism”, that is, when donating plasma for therapeutic use and transferring their remuneration to nongovernmental organizations, is an option. We propose relying on double altruism to resolve the plasma paradox, and suggest that it could serve as a starting point for the development of more optimized means for donor recruitment.
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spelling pubmed-84587492021-09-24 Help Is in Your Blood—Incentive to “Double Altruism” Resolves the Plasma Donation Paradox Gyuris, Petra Gáspár, Baksa Gergely Birkás, Béla Csókási, Krisztina Kocsor, Ferenc Front Psychol Psychology Blood donation is considered as one of the purest forms of altruism. Plasma donation, in contrast, despite being a similar process, is mostly a paid activity in which donors are compensated for their contribution to the production of therapeutic preparations. This creates a so-called “plasma paradox:” If remuneration is promised for a socially useful effort, volunteers with altruistic motives might be deterred. At the same time, regular plasma donors who pursue the monetary benefits of donation might drop out if remuneration stops. The same controversy can be caught in the messages of most plasma donation companies as well: They promise a monetary reward (MR), and at the same time, highlight the altruistic component of donation. In this study, we tested the assumption that emphasizing the social significance enhances the willingness to donate blood plasma more effectively than either MR or the combination of these two incentives. This had to be rejected since there was no significant difference between the three scenarios. Furthermore, we also hypothesized that individuals might be more motivated to donate plasma if there is a possibility of offering an MR toward other socially beneficial aims. We found an increased willingness to donate in scenarios enabling “double altruism”, that is, when donating plasma for therapeutic use and transferring their remuneration to nongovernmental organizations, is an option. We propose relying on double altruism to resolve the plasma paradox, and suggest that it could serve as a starting point for the development of more optimized means for donor recruitment. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-09-09 /pmc/articles/PMC8458749/ /pubmed/34566745 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.653848 Text en Copyright © 2021 Gyuris, Gáspár, Birkás, Csókási and Kocsor. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Gyuris, Petra
Gáspár, Baksa Gergely
Birkás, Béla
Csókási, Krisztina
Kocsor, Ferenc
Help Is in Your Blood—Incentive to “Double Altruism” Resolves the Plasma Donation Paradox
title Help Is in Your Blood—Incentive to “Double Altruism” Resolves the Plasma Donation Paradox
title_full Help Is in Your Blood—Incentive to “Double Altruism” Resolves the Plasma Donation Paradox
title_fullStr Help Is in Your Blood—Incentive to “Double Altruism” Resolves the Plasma Donation Paradox
title_full_unstemmed Help Is in Your Blood—Incentive to “Double Altruism” Resolves the Plasma Donation Paradox
title_short Help Is in Your Blood—Incentive to “Double Altruism” Resolves the Plasma Donation Paradox
title_sort help is in your blood—incentive to “double altruism” resolves the plasma donation paradox
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8458749/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34566745
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.653848
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