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30 Rutgers L.J. 1 (1998-1999)
A Psychological Model of Judicial Decision Making

handle is hein.journals/rutlj30 and id is 11 raw text is: A PSYCHOLOGICAL MODEL OF JUDICIAL
DECISION MAKING©
Dan Simon*
I. INTRODUCTION   ........................................................................................   3
A. Why Do We Need a Psychology of Judging? ................................... 3
Some Lingering Conundrums ....................................................... 7
B. Three Familiar Explanations ....................................................... 12
1. Role-Constraint Explanation ...................................................  12
2. Prescriptive and Functional Explanations ............................... 14
C. Introducing the Psychological Model .......................................... 19
D. Mapping Related Perspectives and Theories ................................. 22
1. Jerome Frank's Law and the Modern Mind ............................. 23
2. Duncan Kennedy's Phenomenology of Judging ...................... 25
3. Ronald Dworkin's Theory of Interpretation ........................... 26
4. Studies of Judicial Behavior ....................................................  27
5. Pennington and Hastie Story Model ....................................... 29
6. Additional Related Approaches .............................................. 30
E. M ethodological Issues ...................................................................  32
1. Applicability of Psychological Theory to Judging .................. 33
2. Reliability of Judicial Opinions as a Source of Data ............... 34
F. Focusing the Scope of the Model ................................................... 39
© Copyright 1998, Dan Simon.
*   Assistant Professor of Law, Haifa University, Israel; S.J.D., Harvard Law School,
1997; M.B.A., INSEAD, Fontainbleau, France, 1988; LL.B., Tel Aviv University, 1986.
Email address: dsimon@psych.uclaedu.
Many people assisted me in the writing of this Article. For their tireless support and
discerning insight, I am indebted to my advisors Henry Steiner and Lewis Sargentich of
Harvard Law School and Daniel Gilbert of the Department of Psychology, Harvard
University. I have benefited much from the enlightening observations of Scott Altman,
Yochai Benkler, Gary Blasi, Duncan Kennedy, Ziva Kunda, Doron Menashe, Martha Minow,
Joshua Sherman, Anne Simon, Clyde Spillenger and Joseph Weiler. I thank the participants
in the S.J.D. Colloquium at Harvard Law School, the Cognitive Science Seminar at the
University of California, Los Angeles, and the law faculty workshops at the University of
Haifa, the University of Southern California, and the University of San Diego. A significant
part of this Article was written during stays at the Department of Psychology at the University
of California, Los Angeles as a Visiting Scholar. I am grateful for the ongoing hospitality.
Special thanks to Keith Holyoak for introducing me to the fascinating world of
experimentation.

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