Help Is in Your Blood-Incentive to "Double Altruism" Resolves the Plasma Donation Paradox

Area of Science:

• Social Psychology
• Health Economics
• Biomedical Sciences

Background:

• Blood donation is altruistic, but plasma donation is often compensated, creating a
• plasma paradox
• where monetary incentives may deter altruistic donors or cause paid donors to leave if compensation stops.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate factors influencing willingness to donate plasma.
• To test if emphasizing social significance is more effective than monetary reward (MR) or a combination.
• To explore the impact of directing MR towards social causes on donation willingness.

Main Methods:

• Compared willingness to donate plasma across three incentive scenarios: social significance, MR, and combined.
• Assessed willingness in a 'double altruism' scenario where MR could be donated to NGOs.
• Analyzed donor responses to different motivational appeals.

Main Results:

• No significant difference in donation willingness was found between emphasizing social significance, MR, or their combination.
• Willingness to donate plasma significantly increased when donors had the option to direct their MR to socially beneficial aims ('double altruism').

Conclusions:

• The 'plasma paradox' may be mitigated by leveraging 'double altruism'.
• Allowing donors to donate their compensation to NGOs enhances motivation.
• This strategy offers a potential pathway for optimizing plasma donor recruitment.