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Do a Law’s Policy Implications Affect Beliefs About Its Constitutionality? An Experimental Test

  • Original Article
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Law and Human Behavior

Abstract

Although a substantial empirical literature has found associations between judges’ political orientation and their judicial decisions, the nature of the relationship between policy preferences and constitutional reasoning remains unclear. In this experimental study, law students were asked to determine the constitutionality of a hypothetical law, where the policy implications of the law were manipulated while holding all legal evidence constant. The data indicate that, even with an incentive to select the ruling best supported by the legal evidence, liberal participants were more likely to overturn laws that decreased taxes than laws that increased taxes. The opposite pattern held for conservatives. The experimental manipulation significantly affected even those participants who believed their policy preferences had no influence on their constitutional decisions.

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Notes

  1. Because our hypotheses are directional, it is appropriate to use a one-tailed test (Runyon and Haber 1988).

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Acknowledgments

We thank Jeff Dominitz, Daniel Feiler, Gary Franko, Joan Kiel, Jennifer Lerner, Carlos Raad, George Taylor, William Vogt, and Kai Zheng.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Argosy Foundation, Milwaukee, WI, USA

    Joshua R. Furgeson

  2. Heinz School of Public Policy and Management, Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh, PA, 15213, USA

    Linda Babcock

  3. The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

    Peter M. Shane

Authors
  1. Joshua R. Furgeson
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  2. Linda Babcock
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  3. Peter M. Shane
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Joshua R. Furgeson.

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The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors alone and do not reflect the views of the Argosy Foundation or any other institution.

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Furgeson, J.R., Babcock, L. & Shane, P.M. Do a Law’s Policy Implications Affect Beliefs About Its Constitutionality? An Experimental Test. Law Hum Behav 32, 219–227 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10979-007-9102-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10979-007-9102-z

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