ORGAN DONATION IN THE CONTEXT OF HUMAN TENDENCY TO BE CONSISTENT. CONSIDERATIONS WITH REFERENCE TO LAW AND PSYCHOLOGY

Abstract

The text verifies the hypotheses that exploiting the human tendency to be consistent and introducing appropriate legal solutions can increase organ donation. The considerations found that there are arguments for the status quo bias (the tendency to be consistent) exists and affects humans. Concurrently, there are multiple rational psychological justifications for this kind of occurrences. Thus, the status quo bias can be exploited for increasing the organ donation, imposing on a person the decision regarding being willing to become an organ donor after their death or not, and count on this person not changing their decision in the future due to the tendency to be consistent. In Poland, such a solution could be introduced by adding the 7th item to the Article 11 section 1 of the Act on Vehicle Operators with the following wording: “declared that they agree or not to the removal of cells, tissues or organs from their corpses for transplantation, or the removal of cells and tissues for transplanting them into another person. The declaration may be changed at any time.”

Keywords

• status quo bias; organ donation; law; psychology