Errors in Judgement: Evidence of the Fundamental Attribution Error in Supreme Court Decision-Making

It is well demonstrated that extra-legal factors can drive judicial decision-making on the United States Supreme Court. Political psychologists have also demonstrated that political actors fall victim to certain biases, particularly in the form of the Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE), which limits the information they consider when making political decisions. The FAE is the tendency to attribute the root causes of bad actions to dispositions of actors an individuals dislikes, while blaming situational circumstances for people an individual likes. This is the first study exploring the presence of the FAE in Supreme Court decision-making. Using content analytic techniques, this paper analyzes the frequency of FAE-type language in Supreme Court opinions during the Rehnquist and Roberts court eras. The findings suggest that justices reference the situations of winning parties and the disposition of losing parties in opinions, and that a combination of conscious and subconscious drivers increase the frequency of such references

Drivers of Health Policy Adoption: A political economy of HIV treatment policy

Why do some countries rapidly adopt policies suggested by scientific consensus while others are slow to do so? Through a mixed methods study, we show that the institutional political economy of countries is a stronger and more robust predictor of health policy adoption than either disease burden or national wealth. Our findings challenge expectations in scholarship and among many international actors that policy divergence is best addressed through greater evidence and dissemination channels. Our study of HIV treatment policies shows that factors such as the formal structures of government and the degree of racial and ethnic stratification in society predict the speed with which new medical science is translated into policy, while level of democracy does not. This provides important new insights about the drivers of policy transfer and diffusion and suggests new paths for practical efforts to secure adoption of “evidence-based” policies

Errors in Judgment: The Fundamental Attribution Error and Supreme Court Decision-making

Understanding subconscious motivations in Supreme Court decision-making may provide us with a frame of reference to address undue considerations in our justice system. This paper asks two simple questions: does the fundamental attribution error correlate with Supreme Court outcomes, and what factors drive the error’s presence? This question is explored using an econometric approach from content-analyzed Supreme Court opinions. It is anticipated that the error will not be present at a rate of statistical significance, but that the error will be positively correlated with non-majority opinions, emotional language usage, and “politicized” questions of law

COVID-19 Cases Among Employees of U.S. Federal and State Prisons

IntroductionPrevious research has found COVID-19 cases to be disproportionately prevalent among U.S. prisoners. Similar to prisoners, prison staff experience ventilation and social distancing hazards and may have limited access to testing, paid sick leave, personal protective equipment, and other workplace protections. Yet, systematic case surveillance among prison staff remains unexplored. The objective of this study is to document the trends in COVID-19 cases among U.S. correctional staff relative to those among prisoners and the U.S.PopulationMethodsReports of COVID-19 cases among prisoners and staff were collected from state Departments of Corrections and the Federal Bureau of Prisons from March 31, 2020 to November 4, 2020. In November 2020, this series of aggregated case records was linked to population estimates to calculate COVID-19 period prevalence among prison staff and residents in comparison with the U.S. population trends.ResultsWithin the prison environment, COVID-19 case burden was initially higher among staff than among prisoners in 89% of jurisdictions. Case prevalence escalated more quickly among prisoners but has remained persistently high among staff. By November 4, 2020, COVID-19 was 3.2 times more prevalent among prison staff than among the U.S.PopulationConclusionsPrison staff experienced substantially higher COVID-19 case prevalence than the U.S. population overall. Across prison staff and resident populations, cases were rapidly rising in November 2020, indicating poor outbreak containment within the prison environment. An Emergency Temporary Standard, issued by federal and state Occupational Safety and Health Administrations, and priority vaccination are urgently needed to reduce COVID-19 occupational risk. Reduced occupational transmission of COVID-19 will benefit workers, incarcerated people, and community members alike