Cognition, Motivation, and Supreme Court Decision Making
40 Pages Posted: 3 Aug 2009 Last revised: 27 Sep 2010
Date Written: September 16, 2010
Abstract
Most scholars admit that cognition and motivation are important for understanding decision making. Yet, few incorporate them when examining institutional actors. In this paper, I ask how do cognition and motivation shape judicial decision making? I propose a theory of a justice’s cognitive reasoning style that accounts for the complexity of thought and argue that it shapes the degree that ideology influences votes conditionally based upon the motivational basis of the opinion and author’s group status (majority vs. minority). I use content analysis data from Supreme Court opinions spanning 25 terms to test hypotheses within this framework. I find that when majority opinions exhibit a complex reasoning style, ideology’s influence on voting is attenuated, but not for dissenters. Moreover, this paper illustrates how motivation dramatically shapes how cognition influences the ideology-vote relationship, demonstrating that it can either enhance ideology’s influence or negate its influence altogether.
Keywords: integrative complexity, cognition, motivation, cognitive complexity, content analysis, Supreme Court decision making, ideology, reasoning, bottom-up, top-down
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