Feel-good factor explains blood donation
The act of giving blood is often said to be a purely altruistic act, something that we do out of the goodness of our hearts, for the benefits of others. Certainly most ad campaigns for blood emphasise this altruistic quality.
Sometimes I've congratulated myself with this message when I am giving blood, but I didn't really believe it: we do things because they make us feel good, and donating blood, it seems, is no different.
Researchers at the University of Nottingham, UK, surveyed nearly 1000 prospective donors, and looked at the effect of two different types of message on willingness to help, for both committed and uncommitted blood donors. The messages were either "benevolent", meaning that both donor and recipient benefit from donation, or "altruistic", where only the recipient benefits.
The results of the surveys found that beliefs in personal, rather than societal, benefit predicted actual future donation.
In other words, the best explanation for why people donate blood is benevolence - that is, both the donor and recipient benefit from the act.
And committed blood donors were more willing to donate blood when exposed to a benevolent message rather than an altruistic one.
There has even been work suggesting that giving blood helps prolong your own life.
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