A new doctor among us: Joris Schröder

Joris, his paranymphs, the supervisory team and evaluation committee after the successful defence.

On October 11, 2024, former DONORS PhD Candidate Joris Schröder defended his PhD thesis entitled „Social Dynamics of Cooperation: How Motivational Diversity, Social Contagion, Communication, and Group Formation Shape Blood Donation Behaviour“, which was supervised by Prof. Eva-Maria Merz, Prof. Pamala Wiepking, and Prof. Bianca Suanet.

Using the example of blood donation behaviour, this thesis explores key social mechanisms that sustain large scale cooperation. It investigates how motivational diversity, social contagion, communication, and group formation shape blood donation. Joris‘ thesis is based on four empirical studies of blood donor behaviour in the Netherlands and Australia enabled by collaboration with the Dutch blood bank Sanquin and the Australian Red Cross Lifeblood.

Key findings include:

• The identification of four distinct donor types, each with unique motivations and retention rates

• Evidence that acquainted blood donors influence each others’ donation behaviour, especially couples of blood donors (link to paper)

• Evidence that talking about blood donation predicts higher rates of compliance with invitations to donate blood (link to paper)

• The effectiveness of a group membership programme in boosting donation frequency

  
  

By bridging the gap between previous laboratory experiments and real-world application, this research offers valuable insights for both academics and blood banking practitioners. The thesis demonstrates that social mechanisms play a crucial role in sustaining cooperation, particularly in high-cost prosocial behaviors like blood donation. Ultimately, this research contributes to our understanding of human cooperation and provides insights improving blood donor recruitment and retention practices.

You can download the thesis here.

Joris is now a Reserach Fellow at the Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics at the University of Nottingham.

Illustrations by Annoëlle van Hooff and Brian Elstak

Illustration by  Brian Elstak