| Title |
Can Money Symbolize Acknowledgment? How Victims’ Relatives Perceive Monetary Awards for Their Emotional Harm
|
|---|---|
| Published in |
Psychological Injury and Law, November 2011
|
| DOI | 10.1007/s12207-011-9110-7 |
| Pubmed ID | |
| Authors |
Liesbeth Hulst, Arno J. Akkermans |
| Abstract |
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. |
X Demographics
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Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 3 | 75% |
| Spain | 1 | 25% |
Demographic breakdown
| Type | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Members of the public | 4 | 100% |
Mendeley readers
The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 31 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Unknown | 31 | 100% |
Demographic breakdown
| Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Student > Doctoral Student | 5 | 16% |
| Researcher | 4 | 13% |
| Student > Bachelor | 4 | 13% |
| Student > Master | 3 | 10% |
| Student > Ph. D. Student | 2 | 6% |
| Other | 5 | 16% |
| Unknown | 8 | 26% |
| Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Psychology | 6 | 19% |
| Social Sciences | 5 | 16% |
| Arts and Humanities | 4 | 13% |
| Medicine and Dentistry | 2 | 6% |
| Linguistics | 1 | 3% |
| Other | 4 | 13% |
| Unknown | 9 | 29% |
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 3. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 12 October 2022.
All research outputs
#13,339,603
of 23,509,982 outputs
Outputs from Psychological Injury and Law
#118
of 182 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#146,319
of 243,120 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Psychological Injury and Law
#5
of 5 outputs
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