Beyond compensation? Examining the role of apologies in the restoration of victims’ needs in simulated tort cases.

Abstract

Tort law currently debates the value of facilitating apology to enhance the restoration of victims’ nonmaterial needs, and to promote dispute resolution. However, the extent to which apology can augment these outcomes beyond conventional, monetary reparations is not yet clear. The present research aimed to provide some first insights into this question, by means of 2 experimental studies conducted among community members recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk; Study 1) and Prolific (Study 2). Participants imagined a scenario in which they became victims of a traffic accident. Study 1 (N = 81, 42 men, 39 women, Mage = 35.90) manipulated the resulting harm (personal injury or property loss) to examine which needs participants experienced, and what remedies (apology, compensation) they desired. Factor analysis revealed (nonmaterial) needs for interpersonal treatment, responsibility taking, closure, and punishment, and (material) needs for compensation; these needs were as prominent after property loss as after personal injury. Nonmaterial needs predicted greater desire for apology (and not compensation). Study 2 (N = 485, 286 men, 199 women, Mage = 31.03) examined how these remedies impacted the satisfaction of these needs and dispute resolution by manipulating apology (no apology, apology), compensation level (partial, approximate, or exact), and harm within the same scenario. Apologies enhanced the restoration of participants’ nonmaterial needs. However, settlement remained mostly contingent on compensation: (modest) effects of apology were restricted to partial compensation. These findings, therefore, imply that apologies could augment victims’ restoration after torts, but may be limited as a catalyst for settlement.

Apology and Restitution in a Role-play Restorative Justice Experiment: Multiple Perspectives, Multiple Measures

“…Reinders Folmer et al (2019) studied the role of apologies and restitution within an imagined case in which participants were victims of a traffic accident. Apologies enhanced the restoration of participants’ nonmaterial needs like a sense of closure, but settlement in the case remained mostly contingent on compensation.…”

Apologies, Remorse, and Amends: Empirical Legal Studies Across Domains and Disciplines

“…Many claimants also seek accountability, wanting defendants to acknowledge their responsibility or to be found responsible by a court (Relis 2007). Experimental work has identified the nonmaterial needs of injured persons, finding responsibility-taking to be a central focus (Reinders Folmer, Desmet, and Van Boom 2019). Claimants find value in public recognition of the wrong, acknowledgment of the consequences of that wrong, and reaffirmation of a set of underlying values (Relis 2007;van Dijck 2018).…”

“…Across all of these disparate legal domains and others, contributions to our understanding of the role of apologies have been made by scholars drawing on the foundations of multiple disciplines and using a variety of empirical tools. In addition to good doctrinal and theoretical work (e.g., Carroll 2013;Cohen 1999;Orenstein 1998;Vines 2007), contributions have been made by scholars using experiments -conducted both in the lab and in the field (e.g., De Cremer, Pillutla, and Reinders Folmer 2011; Halperin et al 2022;Robbennolt 2006), surveys and interviews (e.g., Reinders Folmer, Desmet, and Van Boom 2019;Relis 2007;Witman et al 1996), archival data on claiming or on case outcomes (e.g., Liu 2011a, Ho andLiu, 2011b;McMichael, Van Horn, and Viscusi 2019), case studies (e.g., Boothman et al 2009;Kachalia et al 2018), systematic analyses of case law (e.g., Wijntjens 2022), and text analytics (e.g., Alexander 2020). The contributions from this array of methods have added to our understanding of apologies and how they operate generally, as well as how they function within particular legal contexts.…”

“…Offering compensation or accepting punishment may give an apology more credibility (Bottom et al 2002;DiFonzo, Alongi, and Wiele 2018;Jeter and Brannon 2017;Zechmeister et al 2004). And there is evidence that apologies are most likely to have an effect on judgments when settlement offers only partially compensate claimants for their harm (Haesevoets et al, 2013;Reinders Folmer, Desmet, and Van Boom 2019). Since settlement agreements are typically compromises that only partially compensate harm, this suggests that there is quite a bit of room for apologies to matter.…”