This article presents two studies that examine cause-related marketing promotions that require consumers’ active participation. Requiring a follow-up behavior has very valuable implications for maximizing marketing expenditures and customer relationship management. Theories related to ethical behavior, like motivated reasoning and defensive denial, are used to explain when and why consumers respond negatively to these effort demands. The first study finds that consumers rationalize not participating in CRM by devaluing the sponsored cause. The second study identifies a tactic marketers can utilize (...) to neutralize consumers’ use of defensive denial. Allowing the consumer to choose the sponsored cause seems to effectively refocus their attention and increases consumers’ threshold for campaign requirements. Implications for nonprofits and marketing managers include a tendency for consumers to be more likely to perceive a firm as ethical and socially responsible when they are allowed to choose the specific cause that is supported. (shrink)

A way to make people save energy is by informing them that “comparable others” save more. We investigated whether one can further improve this nudge by manipulating Who the “comparable others” are. We asked participants to imagine receiving feedback stating that their energy consumption exceeded that of “comparable others” by 10%. We varied Who the “comparable others” were in a 2 × 2 design: they were a household that was located either in the same neighborhood as themselves or in a (...) different neighborhood, and its members were either identified (by names and a photograph) or unidentified. We also included two control conditions: one where no feedback was provided, and one where only statistical feedback was provided (feedback about an average household). We found that it matters Who the “comparable others” are. The most effective feedback was when the referent household was from the same neighborhood as the individual’s and its members were not identified. (shrink)

In this study, we investigated whether background information of a visual charity appeal can influence people’s motivation to donate and the hypothetical amount donated. Specifically, participants were presented with a charity appeal to help a local hospital respond to the Coronavirus Disease-19 emergency depicting a man sitting on a bed in a hospital room. The number of visual details depicted in the background was manipulated according to three conditions: “High information” condition, “low information” condition, and “no information” condition. We investigated (...) whether the number of visual background details would have increased the tangibility of the cause measured as the hospital’s adequate preparedness to deal with the COVID-19 emergency and severity of the patient’s medical conditions. We also investigated whether increased tangibility, elicited by a higher amount of background information, would heighten participants’ perceived impact of their donation and warm glow, which in turn would have led to increased motivation to donate and the amount donated. We found no significant direct effect of condition on the donated amount. However, path models revealed that more background information positively influenced participants’ motivation to donate and the amount donated indirectly through increased tangibility, impact, and warm glow. Finally, we showed that a higher risk perception of COVID-19 was associated with higher donations. Results are discussed in line with relevant literature. (shrink)

Problem setting. Studying the factors that determine health shows that medicine is important along with biogenetic and environmental factors. However, the leading factors of health in modern conditions are the level and quality of life of people, the level of their health culture and lifestyle. This increases the role of researches on social and cultural conditions and determinants of health in the framework of not only medical sciences, but also the sociology of medicine, health and disease, wellness studies. Recent research (...) and publications analysis. Development of the sociology of medicine and health has received significant support after the report of the Minister of Health of Canada M. Lalonde, “A new perspective on the health of Canadians”, in which new strategies of forming a culture of public health and improving the quality of life and people’s well-being were proposed. Sociological analysis of the problems of health and the development of healthcare has been significantly developed in the works of such researchers in Western Europe and North America, as R. Dubo, Т. MacKeown, V. Navarro, I. Illich, E. Friedson, I. Zola, S. Szreter, A. Williams, R. Stevens, K. Winter, A. Titmonas, N. Gail, C. Lafontaine, E. Annandale, D. Mechanic, G. Weiss, K. White, S. Blum, D. Black, H. Freeman, S. Levine, F. Wolinsky, J. Gable, M. Elston, N. Hart, J. Travis and others. Such Russian and Ukrainian scientists have contributed to the development of the sociology of medicine and health, as V. Lupandin, A. Izutkin, A. Sahno, J. Lisicin, N. Vinogradov, V. Dil’man, I. Brehman, G. Caregorodcev, V. Dimov, V. Kochenov, I. Zhuravleva, N. Grigor’eva, K. Habibulin, A. Reshetnikov, E. Dmitrieva, N. Antonova, G. Apanasenko, V. Petlenko, L. Sushhenko, I. Gorbas’, G. Slabkij, V. Moskalenko, T. Gruzeva, O. Cimbrovskij, N. Panina, Y. Golovaha, O. Balakireva, N. Ringach, R. Levin, I. Venirchuk, N. Soboleva, G. Chepurko and others. Paper objective. Consideration of the main problems of modern sociology of health and healthcare as the objects of sociological research. Paper main body. Problem field of the sociology of health and medicine has a wide range of different aspects of the study of values, knowledge, ideas, norms, as well as indicators, conditions and factors of health, its pathologies at the individual, group, national and global levels. Sociology studies the development of healthcare system and medical services from an institutional point of view, considering it as a modern complex institutional phenomenon. An important aspect of sociological analysis of this institution are the manifestations of socio-economic, territorial, gender, ethnic inequality in access to medical care, health improvement and health culture. The manifestations of subnational and global gaps in access to medical care and health improvement are considered by experts as the most acute problems of modern health care. Sociological approach involves understanding the inter-institutional relations of the development of medical and healthcare through the study of their economic, political, legal, cultural, vocational, scientific, technical, information and communicative manifestations. In Ukraine, the sociology of medicine and health shows achievements in the empirical field of research and is progressively developing within the framework of academic science and universities in the medical and sports fields. Actual problems of sociological analysis of the state of health and its preservation are studies of causes of high morbidity and mortality, low birth rates, gender analysis of health and causes of morbidity, issues of the quality and accessibility of medical services, the effectiveness of health care reform, prospects for the development of insurance medicine in Ukraine, ways to increase public health culture. Conclusions of the research. Modern sociology makes an important contribution to health management as a comprehensive area of modern science about problems of public and individual health, institutional foundations of healthcare, trends and prospects for the transformation of medicine and health culture in the context of globalization and internetization of society and implementation of sustainable development strategies. The development of sociology of medicine and health is an important element in the scientific, informational and analytical support of effective policies in the field of maintaining health, improving the welfare of society and people’s happiness. (shrink)