Title
Errors in Judgement: Evidence of the Fundamental Attribution Error in Supreme Court Decision-Making
Degree Year
2015
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Politics
Advisor(s)
Michael Parkin
Ronald Kahn
Keywords
Supreme Court, Supreme Court decision-making, Fundamental attribution error, Political psychology, Attitudinal model, Rational choice model
Abstract
It is well demonstrated that extra-legal factors can drive judicial decision-making on the United States Supreme Court. Political psychologists have also demonstrated that political actors fall victim to certain biases, particularly in the form of the Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE), which limits the information they consider when making political decisions. The FAE is the tendency to attribute the root causes of bad actions to dispositions of actors an individuals dislikes, while blaming situational circumstances for people an individual likes.
This is the first study exploring the presence of the FAE in Supreme Court decision-making. Using content analytic techniques, this paper analyzes the frequency of FAE-type language in Supreme Court opinions during the Rehnquist and Roberts court eras. The findings suggest that justices reference the situations of winning parties and the disposition of losing parties in opinions, and that a combination of conscious and subconscious drivers increase the frequency of such references.
Repository Citation
Parish, Kalind David Sommer, "Errors in Judgement: Evidence of the Fundamental Attribution Error in Supreme Court Decision-Making" (2015). Honors Papers. 267.
https://digitalcommons.oberlin.edu/honors/267
