# Determinants of Memory Encoding of Altruistic Messages: M-Delphi and F-DEMATEL Approach
## 6 Discussion
### General Discussion  
The findings of this study indicate that personal interest is the most significant determinant of the memory encoding of altruistic messages. This finding is consistent with the findings of prior studies, which established that the recipient's interest in communication ensures that the message is retained [7]. For communication to be influential, parties in the communication process need to take an interest in the communication process. Interest in an issue being communicated increases the individual's engagement in the communication process, which implies active processing of messages in the communication and remembrance of the messages [67]. Consequently, the messages that they receive become encoded into their memory. Thus, personal interest helps achieve memory encoding by ensuring information is processed centrally. The results also indicate that personal interest has causal effects on argument quality, source expertise, interpersonal information, outcome desirability to others, homophily, and atmosphere. The findings also demonstrate that emotional appeal is another important determinant of encoding altruistic messages. This is consistent with prior research, which has established the critical role of emotions in the retainment of emotion [76; 77]. Emotional appeal also has causal effects on argument quality, source expertise, outcome desirability to self, and outcome desirability to others. Emotions are mainly associated with the peripheral path of information processing [41]. Altruism is primarily an emotional endeavor because it stems from the individual's concern for the welfare of others [62]. Messages that are emotionally loaded appeal to the emotions of the audience. This finding demonstrates that altruistic messages are also processed through the peripheral path, associated mainly with emotions [44]. Personal experience is also a significant determinant of the memory encoding of altruistic messages, and also has causal effects on source expertise, trust, interpersonal information, and social proof. This finding is also in line with prior research, which established that individuals' experience with a certain phenomenon enhances their retainment of information related to that phenomenon in future [68]. Thus, when individuals have first-hand experience of benefiting from others'  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c} \hline \hline
**Factor** & **Di** & **Ri** & **Di + Ri** & **Di – Ri** \\ \hline A1 & 0.263 & 0.306 & 0.569 & \(-\)0.043 \\ \hline A2 & 0.350 & 0.282 & 0.632 & 0.067 \\ \hline A3 & 0.296 & 0  
helping behavior, they have pre-existing evidence about the benefits of altruism and understand the importance of altruism [48]. As such, they would value subsequent messages about altruism, and, because the messages are considered valuable, they are encoded into their memory. This finding provides further evidence to prior empirical findings that personal experience affects the likelihood of an individual's acceptance of an external stimulus [64]. The study's findings also demonstrate that outcome desirability to self and outcome desirability to others are the first and second most significant factors, respectively. Prior research has suggested that altruism is primarily associated with the individual's concern for others [62]. The study's results indicate that concern for self and others contributes to altruism. If the causal factors are addressed accordingly, the recipient considers the altruism communicated in the message beneficial to self and others, consistent with prior research [78]. Thus, if individuals are interested in altruistic messages, it is partly because they believe it benefits themselves and others. This could explain why self-interest would ensure that outcome desirability to self and outcome desirability to others is achieved. The results indicate that outcome desirability to self has a higher degree of significance than outcome desirability to others.