title: What underlies medical donor attitudes and behavior?
abstract: Donor attitudes, intentions, and behaviors have typically been conceptualized as organized along a bipolar continuum. This conceptualization is evident in I. G. Sarason et al.'s study of increasing participation in a bone-marrow registry in this issue. When the cumulative research on blood, bone-marrow, and organ donor behavior is considered, however, evidence suggests that a single, bipolar continuum may be insufficient and that a 2-dimensional (Positivity x Negativity) evaluative space may be minimally required to effectively represent and target the underlying substrates of donor behaviors. Negative beliefs and fears may constitute a particularly difficult obstacle to inducing donor behaviors and, thus, to promoting self-perceptions by people as donors. Understanding and changing these negative substrates, therefore, may be important if public health campaigns to increase donor behavior are to be cost-effective.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Ohio State University, Columbus 43210-1222.
authors.forename: J T
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Cacioppo
authors.forename: W L
authors.initials: WL
authors.lastname: Gardner
mesh_terms: D001294:Attitude to Health; D001782:Blood Donors / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006379:Helping Behavior; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D012042:Registries; D014015:Tissue Banks / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D014019:Tissue Donors / Q000706:statistics & numerical data