The 1960 Term of the Supreme Court: A Psychological Analysis

Much recent research in the decision-making of the United States Supreme Court has been characterized by a pronounced emphasis upon the invocation of socio-psychological theory and statistical methods of data processing in lieu of exclusive reliance upon the legal-historical theory and methods typical of most research in this field of study. Symbolic of this development is the increasing tendency of political scientists to consider constitutional law as an aspect of political behavior as well as a branch of law, and correspondingly, to study the subject matter as judicial behavior. Naturally, this recent work has evinced a preoccupation with unidimensional analysis, since it is less complicated to work with one variable than with many, and the experience so gained no doubt is a prerequisite to multivariate study. Nevertheless, students who remain committed to the more traditional workways in constitutional law are quite right in insisting, as they do, that most Supreme Court cases raise what at least appear prima facie to be many issues for decision, and that their more subjective and impressionistic mode of analysis retains the great virtue of not oversimplifying the rich complexity of many Supreme Court cases to the extent that inescapably seems to be required by the newer theories and methods. Clearly, further advances in the behavioral study of Supreme Court decision-making depend upon the development of multidimensional models of Court action, which will make possible the observation and measurement of interrelationships among the significant major variables that in combination provide the basis for an adequate explanation of the manifest differences in the voting and opinion behavior of the justices.