Promoting organ donation through mortality salience for different levels and orientations of religiosity

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Tezin Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Fen Edebiyat Fakültesi, Psikoloji Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2015

Öğrenci: SILA DERVİŞ

Danışman: NURAY SAKALLI UĞURLU

Özet:

The aim of the current thesis is to investigate the impact of mortality salience (MS) coupled with helping prime (HP) on the altruistic behavior of organ donation. For this purpose, individuals were randomly assigned to any of the four conditions: MS and HP, only MS, only HP, control. Besides, eight individual differences were controlled when testing this effect: altruism, religiosity, intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity, religious restrictions, death anxiety, belief in afterlife, and body unity. Moreover, it was predicted that the less religious and less intrinsically religious people would be more inclined to organ donation after mortality salience. These hypotheses were tested in two studies with 160 and 141 participants, with online and paper-and-pencil, respectively. The first hypothesis was tested with a MANCOVA, but neither of the studies found the effect of MS or HP on the attitudes and intentions regarding organ donation. As the first hypothesis was not supported, the second hypothesis was refuted automatically, since it assumed a main effect of MS. Further analyses revealed that attitudes and intentions were significantly predicted by body unity beliefs and religious restrictions regarding organ donation. The reasons for unexpected results and solutions for possible complications were discussed.