Being involved in a compensation process is associated with higher mental health complaints but three-quarters of the difference appeared to be already present at baseline. The findings of this study should be interpreted with caution because of the limited quality of evidence. The difference at baseline may be explained by a selection bias or more anger and blame about the accident in the compensation group. The difference between baseline and follow-up may be explained by secondary gain and secondary victimisation. Future research should involve assessment of exposure to compensation processes, should analyse and correct for baseline differences, and could examine the effect of time, compensation scheme design, and claim settlement on (mental) health.

Legal systems differ markedly on how they treat the emotional harm suffered by close family members of crime or accident victims. This paper reports the results of two empirical studies examining how citizens whose child, partner, or parent was killed or seriously injured as a result of violent crime or tort (secondary victims) perceive a monetary award for their own non-economic harm relating to the death or injury of their loved one. The objective of our research was to test the Dutch legislator’s assumption that a (modest) monetary award for secondary victims’ emotional harm can have a meaningful symbolic value by providing recognition and satisfaction. Until then, no compensation was available for such harm under Dutch law. In addition, we examined whether victims’ relatives preferred standardization or individuation in determining the amount of the award, how they evaluated the amount, and the manner in which such awards might be offered. In a first quantitative survey study conducted in the Netherlands, 726 secondary victims were asked for their evaluations of such awards for the emotional harm they suffered as a result of the death or injury of their family member. We also asked our representative sample about their actual experience of the legal process in order to put their evaluations of such awards into context. In a second qualitative study, conducted in Belgium, interviews were held with 14 secondary victims who had actually received an award for their own emotional harm under Belgian law (study 2). Results suggest that secondary victims regard an award for emotional harm as a positive gesture and may interpret it as helping to satisfy relatives’ psychological concerns by seeing it, for example, as an acknowledgment of loss and responsibility. Overall findings suggest that victims’ relatives may be seeking acknowledgement of their emotional losses and the norm violation.

Recent debates have questioned the robustness of priming effects in experimental social psychology. Here we present results from two randomized controlled field experiments, conducted in courtrooms among actual litigants, that may contribute to the robustness of our field.Specifically, we examine how litigants respond to court hearings pertaining to important decisions about their bankruptcy (Study 1) and criminal sentences that can be imposed on them (Study 2). In studying litigants' reactions to these hearings, we focus on the issue of why perceptions of how fairly litigants feel they have been treated by individual judges during court hearings are positively associated with their trust in the judges in their country (Study 1) and with the legitimate power they assign to these judges (Study 2). These linkages between procedural justice judgments in court and evaluations of judges are important examples of how people's procedural justice perceptions can affect their attitudes and behaviors. 1 We propose a new conceptual explanation why procedural justice may be linked to evaluations of judges. In our explanation we note that litigants involved in court hearings will try to understand what is going on in their hearings. To do this, we assume they will inhibit ongoing action as this will allow them to pay close attention to what is going on in the courtroom. In this state of behavioral inhibition, experiences of procedural justice encountered in the courtroom are presumed to be salient and impact litigants' impressions of how much trust and legitimate power they can assign to judges in their country. Importantly, we argue that if this line of reasoning has merit, then it should be the case that weakening the state of behavioral inhibition will attenuate the association between procedural justice and litigants' evaluations of judges.We test this line of reasoning by means of experimental manipulation. In the courtroom experiments that we will present, participants were (versus were not) reminded about having acted without behavioral

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