Emotional Influences on Judgments of Legal Blame: How They Happen, Whether They Should, and What to Do About It

Abstract

Determining how people's emotions affect their judgments of legal responsibility and blame, and when, if ever, they should, is a challenging and important task. This chapter explains that emotions may affect judgments of legal blame in several ways, most importantly by altering the depth of information processing; biasing perception, recall, and interpretation of information in the direction of the emotion; and providing informational cues to judgment. These types of emotional influence, moreover, may co-occur, become part of emotional and cognitive feedback loops, and enter into still more complex relationships. The chapter then takes up the normative question of when, if ever, it is a good thing for legal decision makers' emotions to influence their judgments. The judgmental benefits and drawbacks of emotional influence are outlined and discussed in the context of two actual cases. Finally, suggestions are offered as to how emotional influences on legal decision making at trial can be contained, to the extent that this is deemed desirable.

Keywords: law and psychology, emotions, cognitions, judgment and decision making