Emotion loop: From empathy to sympathy - A sustainable social design strategy for organ donation in Hong Kong

The Shortage of Donors for Organ Transplant is severe in Hong Kong. This paper envisions a potential resolution of this critical issue by implementing a sustainable social design strategy based on human affects of empathy and sympathy. As a matter-of-fact, many studies have been done on measuring attitudes and commitment to organ donation while other studies focused on the promotion of the organ donor card. Those surveys pointed out a discrepancy between positive attitude and low commitment rate to donation. This paper is to make a case for a new Organ Donation scheme which embraces emotional, functional and spiritual needs of both patients and potential donors. The scheme involves collaborative networks and interpersonal channels of communication. It results in a viral marketing strategy which involves empathy and sympathy as stimuli of the altruistic behaviors.