Helping With All Your Heart: Realistic Heart Stimulus and Compliance With an Organ Donation Request

Pictures and images are important aspects in fundraising advertising and could generate more donations. In two experimental studies, we examined the effect of various pictures of hearts on compliance with a request for organ donations. The solicitor wore a white tee shirt where various forms of hearts were printed: symbolic versus realistic (first experiment), none versus symbolic versus realistic (second experiment). Results showed that more compliance was found in the realistic heart experimental condition whereas the symbolic heart form had no significant effect.