Exploring the relationship between umbilical blood cord donation and the impact of social distance on altruism and trust

Abstract

A llogeneic umbilical cord blood (UCB) donation is a pro-social behaviour directed to strangers that has a certain cost for the donor. Although the promotion of such behaviour is an important goal for many countries' health systems, little is known about the reasons that would lead to it. With this study, we explored how the impact of social closeness on altruism and trust could be related to UCB donation in a sample of new-mothers (N = 167). Participants played hypothetical Dictator and Trust games with socially close (e.g., parents) or distant (e.g., strangers) others. They donated more money to parents and siblings compared to cousins, friends and strangers and they trusted more parents, siblings and friends than cousins and strangers. Interestingly, the lower the impact of social closeness on altruism (i.e., generosity towards socially distant others), the higher the intention and the actual probability of UCB donation. A mediation analysis has shown that the relationship between social closeness on altruism and UCB donation was mediated by objective intention to donate (i.e., having followed all the procedures needed). These findings show that other-oriented motivations towards distant others might have important practical implications in identifying the targets of interventions for the promotion of UCB donation.

The Impact of Positivity and Parochial Altruism on Protective Behaviours during the First COVID-19 Lockdown in Italy

“…In line with previous studies, we found that altruism was affected by social distance, with participants being more generous to close compared with distant ones [ 33 , 39 , 56 , 57 ]. In particular, participants donated the most generous amount of money to parents and siblings and the lowest amount of money to neighbours and strangers.…”

“…While the lack of effect on social distancing behaviours might be due, again, to a ceiling effect due to the impossibility of ignoring those rules [ 53 , 54 , 55 ], the effect found on the hygiene behaviours supports the hypothesis that the prosocial attitude towards close ones and not the population in general determines the compliance to these rules. A lower impact of social distance on altruism (more generosity towards distant ones) has been found only in extraordinary altruists such as kidney donors [ 34 ], in mothers who decide to donate umbilical blood cord to strangers [ 39 ], and in older adults who might develop more self-transcendent goals [ 59 ]. In contrast, parochial altruism seems to emerge as a consequence of warfare and between-group competition to promote individual and child fitness [ 60 , 61 ].…”

“…Positive values for this index reflected people who donated more to close than distant others; values around zero indicated people who donated similar amounts to these two categories; negative values indicated people who donated more to distant than close others. This measure has previously been shown to correlate to real-life altruistic behaviour such as umbilical blood cord donation [ 39 ].…”