Blood Donation: An Exploratory Study of Antecedents and Outcomes of Self- reported behaviour

This research explores the antecedents and consequences of self-reported blood donation behaviour for females. A model is provided whereby firstly, the antecedents of blood donation behaviour are hypothesised to be involvement in the blood donation social issue and attitude towards the act of blood donation as a social issue. Secondly, it is hypothesised that the outcomes of blood donation behaviour are an assessment of consequences by individuals and arousal of feelings. The results indicated that both social issue involvement and attitude towards the social issue have significant effects on blood donation behaviour. In addition, blood donation behaviour was found to have a negative effect on subjective assessment of negative consequences and a positive effect on aroused feelings. Introduction According to the Australian Red Cross Blood Service the demand for blood is expected to double in the next 10 years. However, it seems that only around 3.5% of all Australians eligible to donate blood, (www.donateblood.com.au) do so, and as such there is an imperative to find ways to influence greater numbers of eligible individuals to become blood donors. This situation should be of interest to social marketers because by understanding factors that influence individuals to undertake positive social issue behaviours, such as donating blood, may provide clues to finding ways to influence other individuals to do the same. This position may be framed within the context of the blood donation social issue, and an individual’s degree of involvement in and attitude towards the issue. Furthermore, in addition to the factors that determine behaviour, it may be that the outcomes of an individual’s behaviour may also provide clues for social marketers to design more effective social marketing campaigns. Fundamentally, this may be viewed in terms of how individuals make a subjective assessment of negative consequences, and their aroused feelings as a result of their behaviour. Social Issue Involvement Involvement has been shown to have a significant influence on a wide range of consumer behaviours (Krugman, 1965; Mitchell, 1979; O’Cass, 2000), there has however, been limited interest in the role of involvement in relation to social issues and associated behaviours (Griffin and O’Cass, 2004). This situation would seem surprising, given that many of the behavioural choices social marketers attempt to influence appear to entail high involvement decisions (Andreasen, 1995; Celsi and Olsen, 1988). Therefore, drawing on Mittal’s (1995) definition of involvement as a person’s perceived importance of the object, it is suggested here that it may not matter what represents the ‘object’, (i.e., product, task or social issue) as long as it is deemed to be of concern, important or matters to the individual – it is involving. Importantly, involvement is viewed in the context of the pro or positive involvement in a