Balaskas Stefanos, Rigou Maria, Xenos Michalis, Mallas Andreas
Department of Management Science and Technology, University of Patras, 26334 Patras, Greece.
Department of Computer Engineering and Informatics, University of Patras, 26504 Patras, Greece.
Behav Sci (Basel). 2024 Aug 22;14(8):731. doi: 10.3390/bs14080731.
Human blood is one of the most valuable and irreplaceable goods in modern medicine. Although its necessity increases daily, one of the most significant challenges we have to overcome is a scarcity of willing blood donors. Volunteer motives and attitudes have been studied for decades, but it is now considered vital to grasp the many aspects that will increase the effectiveness of attracting new blood donors. This study focuses on the impact of emotional arousal produced by advertising messages, as well as the determining role of altruistic and egoistic incentives in deciding behavior. We also incorporated the element of personality to investigate how personality traits influence behavioral intention to donate blood. To this end, a quantitative non-experimental correlational 2 × 2 experimental design (positive vs. negative emotional appeal; altruistic vs. egoistic message) was implemented with the participation of 462 respondents who were shown a total of 12 advertisements (ads) promoting blood donation. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling, with a focus on the direct impacts on donation intentions, the role of emotional arousals and attitude towards the ads as mediators and the moderating effect of the message. The empirical results of our hypotheses revealed that only Honesty-Humility had a strong direct impact on behavioral intention to donate, while Emotionality and Agreeableness did not have any direct effect. On the other hand, attitudes towards advertisements significantly and directly influenced positive and negative emotional arousals, respectively. Furthermore, if we consider these two variables alone, they can be found to exert a direct impact on BI. Mediation analysis showed that attitudes towards the advertisements and emotional arousals partially mediated the relation between Honesty-Humility and Behavioral Intention, thus confirming partial mediation. With respect to Emotionality and Agreeableness, mediation was found to be full since these factors only affected BI through a mediated path, which confirmed full mediation. Furthermore, the moderation analysis highlighted that the type of message (altruistic vs. egoistic) significantly moderated the relationship between both emotional arousals and BI. In particular, positive emotional arousal's influence is strengthened when it is aligned with altruistic messages, while negative emotional arousal's influence is weakened if it follows an altruistic message. These findings illustrate that using positive emotions will be more beneficial for increasing people's donation intentions than bringing negative ones, which implies that message framing has a hidden impact on donation decisions.
人类血液是现代医学中最宝贵且不可替代的物品之一。尽管其需求日益增加，但我们必须克服的最重大挑战之一是自愿献血者的短缺。几十年来，人们一直在研究志愿者的动机和态度，但现在认为掌握诸多能提高吸引新献血者有效性的因素至关重要。本研究聚焦于广告信息所产生的情绪唤起的影响，以及利他和利己激励因素在决定行为方面的决定性作用。我们还纳入了人格因素，以探究人格特质如何影响献血行为意图。为此，实施了一项定量非实验性相关2×2实验设计（积极情绪诉求与消极情绪诉求；利他信息与利己信息），共有462名受访者参与，他们总共观看了12则宣传献血的广告。数据采用结构方程模型进行分析，重点关注对献血意图的直接影响、情绪唤起和对广告的态度作为中介的作用以及信息的调节效应。我们假设的实证结果表明，只有诚实谦逊对献血行为意图有强烈的直接影响，而情绪性和宜人性则没有任何直接影响。另一方面，对广告的态度分别显著且直接地影响了积极和消极情绪唤起。此外，如果仅考虑这两个变量，会发现它们对行为意图有直接影响。中介分析表明，对广告的态度和情绪唤起部分中介了诚实谦逊与行为意图之间的关系，从而证实了部分中介作用。对于情绪性和宜人性，中介作用被发现是完全的，因为这些因素仅通过中介路径影响行为意图，这证实了完全中介作用。此外，调节分析突出表明，信息类型（利他与利己）显著调节了情绪唤起与行为意图之间的关系。特别是，当积极情绪唤起与利他信息一致时，其影响会增强，而如果消极情绪唤起遵循利他信息，其影响则会减弱。这些发现表明，使用积极情绪比引发消极情绪对提高人们的献血意图更有益，这意味着信息框架对献血决策有潜在影响。
