Valérie Haas

Giving or giving back: New psychosocial insights from sperm donors in France

Despite the growing importance of the international scientific literature concerning donor insemination, studies of French samples are rare. We recently had the opportunity to conduct a nationwide study on psychosocial issues related to semen donation in France. In this article, we present the main results of an analysis of the narratives of 33 sperm donors. We examine the meaning they attribute to this experience, their motivations, the social ramifications of their action, and their perspective on the principles of sperm donation in France. We highlight our results by comparing them to those derived from other recent international studies in different legislative contexts. Finally, we suggest a hypothesis regarding donor motivations based on recent literature in social sciences regarding the fundamental role of gift and reciprocity. These issues, particularly the anonymity of gamete donation, are currently at the heart of a national debate related to the expected revision of the French bioethics law.

Rumour as a symptom of collective forgetfulness

This psychosocial study attempts to shed light on the essential distinction between memory and recollection, and suggests a view of forgetfulness in terms of its intrinsic links with transmission. We study the effects and manifestations of collective forgetfulness, which still remain under-explored in psychology. The relatively recent case of a rumour that offered an explanation for and asserted the unprecedented character of a natural disaster—a symptom of forgetfulness—will serve as the basis for our investigation. The qualitative methodological design (documentary research, focus groups) used in this research reveals that the group has not transmitted its own painful past and that the rumour that continues to be promulgated offers an explanation which suits the residents, demonstrating much about their identity and history in the process. This paper will attempt therefore to investigate the ways in which this forgetfulness is transmitted, as well as the evident paradox of its coexistence with the recollection of history within the collective memory of the very same group.