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Emotional Arousal Predicts Voting on the U.S. Supreme Court

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  • Dietrich, Bryce J.
  • Enos, Ryan D.
  • Sen, Maya

Abstract

Do judges telegraph their preferences during oral arguments? Using the U.S. Supreme Court as our example, we demonstrate that Justices implicitly reveal their leanings during oral arguments, even before arguments and deliberations have concluded. Specifically, we extract the emotional content of over 3,000 hours of audio recordings spanning 30 years of oral arguments before the Court. We then use the level of emotional arousal, as measured by vocal pitch, in each of the Justices’ voices during these arguments to accurately predict many of their eventual votes on these cases. Our approach yields predictions that are statistically and practically significant and robust to including a range of controls; in turn, this suggests that subconscious vocal inflections carry information that legal, political, and textual information do not.

Suggested Citation

  • Dietrich, Bryce J. & Enos, Ryan D. & Sen, Maya, 2019. "Emotional Arousal Predicts Voting on the U.S. Supreme Court," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 27(2), pages 237-243, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:polals:v:27:y:2019:i:02:p:237-243_00
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    Cited by:

    1. Alexopoulos, Michelle & Han, Xinfen & Kryvtsov, Oleksiy & Zhang, Xu, 2024. "More than words: Fed Chairs’ communication during congressional testimonies," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    2. Tiffany BARNES & Charles CRABTREE & MATSUO Akitaka & ONO Yoshikuni, 2022. "Women Use More Positive Language than Men: Candidates’ strategic use of emotive language in election campaigns," Discussion papers 22114, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).

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