In Search of a “Happy Ending” in Legal Interpretation: Cognitive Dissonance in Judicial Decision-Making

Abstract

This article aims to provide a new explanation of the judicial decision-making process by applying cognitive dissonance theory. This work shows how the process of interpretation and application of law is affected by the natural human need for consistency between what a person knows, believes and does. Different legal scholars argue that judges make decisions based on different criteria. Some assume that the decisive factor is the content of the law, others that judicial personal values determine the final decision, and others that the driving force of the decision-making process is the judicial need for reputation. Although none of these visions fully describe the adjudication process, they accurately identify the most significant factors (cognitive elements) that influence the interpretation and application of law. According to the cognitive dissonance theory, when deciding which criteria to adjudicate, judges choose the solution that causes the smallest cognitive dissonance and the easiest one to reduce. To satisfy the natural need for consistency, judges must ensure that their decisions align with all the cognitive elements. The cognitive dissonance between judicial decisions and law, personal values, or judicial reputation creates a natural need for its reduction. Dissonance is reduced by changing one of the dissonant elements, devaluating the rejected element, or adding a consonant element. This paper outlines what unites all decisions in the adjudication process as follows: 1) each decision is made so that the resulting cognitive dissonance is as easy as possible to reduce; 2) judges, after making each decision, strive in every possible way to minimize cognitive dissonance; and 3) following the paradigm of basing decisions on the law, the rationale of each decision is constructed in such a way as to demonstrate that the law is the basis for a specific decision. Therefore, judges by legal interpretation seek for the “happy ending” of legal dispute understood as the reduction of the interpretive dissonance to the possible minimum satisfying the natural human need for consistency.

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