Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-mggfc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-03-01T08:05:04.386Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

3 - The Psychology of Judging

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 January 2025

Chad M. Oldfather
Chad M. Oldfather
Affiliation:
Marquette University, Wisconsin
Get access

Summary

This chapter continues the task of considering what, beyond law as it is often imagined, accounts for judicial decision-making. It explores work investigating the influence of motivated reasoning on judges’ behavior, including that which emphasizes the influence of judges’ desire to satisfy the expectations of groups such as their professional peers. It examines the celebrity culture that has arisen around many Supreme Court justices as providing an avenue for the influence of motivated cognition. It also explores other research into the influence of psychological phenomena, such as heuristics and biases, on judges’ decision-making and finally considers the significance of our tendency to notice bias more readily in others than in ourselves.

Keywords

psychologymotivated reasoningjudicial audiencescelebrity cultureheuristics and biasesnaïve realism
Type
Chapter
Information
Judges, Judging, and Judgment
Character, Wisdom, and Humility in a Polarized World
 , pp. 41 - 59
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×