When It’s Bad to Be Lucky: Observers’ Judgments of Fortuitous Victims

We framed crime victims as lucky, through downward counterfactual comparisons, and tested this “luck framing” influence on observers’ judgments of the victims. Victims framed as lucky and aware (Experiment 1) or unaware (Experiment 3) of their luck were rated as in need of less social support than victims who were not framed as lucky. This luck framing effect generalized to victim compensation: lucky aware victims were rated as deserving of less compensation compared to unlucky victims (Experiment 2). In contrast, luck framing of victims had little influence on observers’ judgments of the severity of the sentence a perpetrator should receive (Experiment 4). Taken together, for crime victims it can be bad to be thought of as lucky.