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doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2007.03.001 
Copyright © 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Justice and the human alarm system: The impact of exclamation points and flashing lights on the justice judgment process
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Kees van den Bosa, 
, 
, Jaap Hama, E. Allan Lindb, Marieke Simonisa, Wiljo J. van Essena and Mark Rijpkemac
Received 24 August 2006;
Abstract
Extending theory within the justice domain and work on the human alarm system, the current paper argues that the process by which justice judgments are formed may be influenced reliably by the activation of psychological systems that people use to detect and handle alarming situations. Building on this analysis, it is further proposed that if this line of reasoning is true then presenting alarm-related stimuli, such as exclamation points and flashing lights, to people should lead to more extreme judgments about subsequent justice-related events than not presenting these alarming stimuli. Findings collected using different experimental paradigms provide evidence supporting these predictions both inside and outside the psychology lab. Implications for the social psychology of justice and the human alarm system literature are discussed.
Keywords: Justice; Fairness; Procedures; Outcomes; Human alarm system
Article Outline
The research reported in this paper was supported by a VICI innovational research grant from The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO, 453.03.603) awarded to Kees van den Bos. We thank Henk Aarts, Rob Folger, Johan Karremans, Marjolein Maas, Dirk Steiner, Wolfgang Stroebe, Lorenz van Doornen, Frans Verstraten, Remco Wijn, and Arnaud Wisman for their suggestions during this research project and their comments on previous versions of this paper; and Marjolein Maas and Marijn Poortvliet for their assistance with collecting the data of Experiments 1 and 2.
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