Cognitive Dissonance on the U.S. Supreme Court

Abstract

This research examines the applicability of cognitive dissonance theory to explain a judge’s decision to author or join a separate opinion. The author proposes that, when a judge casts a counterattitudinal vote, that judge will endeavor to reduce the aversive consequences of being viewed as an inconsistent decision maker by justifying his or her attitudinally incongruent vote choice to the public in a separate opinion. The author tests this possibility by examining U.S. Supreme Court justices’ decisions to author or join concurring and dissenting opinions during the 1946 to 2001 terms. The empirical results provide qualified support for the use of separate opinions as dissonance reduction mechanisms, suggesting that dissonance theory both is applicable to the actions of elite decision makers and enjoys validity outside of a laboratory setting.

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