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Does Reason Writing Reduce Decision Bias? Experimental Evidence from Judges in China

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  • Zhuang Liu

Abstract

Anecdotal evidence and academic research show that judges' subjective feelings toward litigants have undue influence on their judgments. This article suggests a simple debiasing procedure, namely, requiring judges to write their reasons before making a decision. I conduct experiments on incumbent Chinese judges to test its effectiveness. Study 1 uses a between-subjects design to explore the interaction of reason writing and a stimulus that induces a judge to have negative feelings toward a defendant. Judges who are required to write down their reasons before they decide a case are significantly less affected by the stimulus than those who directly enter the decision-making stage. Study 2 provides evidence that a forced deliberation period achieves a similar debiasing effect. Study 3 examines the opposite of reason writing-- the delegation of reason writing, which resembles the delegation of opinion writing by judges to law clerks. I find that delegation serves to reinforce biases.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhuang Liu, 2018. "Does Reason Writing Reduce Decision Bias? Experimental Evidence from Judges in China," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 47(1), pages 83-118.
  • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jlstud:doi:10.1086/696879
    DOI: 10.1086/696879
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    Cited by:

    1. Cécile Bourreau-Dubois & Myriam Doriat-Duban & Bruno Jeandidier & Jean Claude Ray, 2020. "Do sentencing guidelines result in lower inter-judge disparity? Evidence from framed field experiment," Working Papers of BETA 2020-28, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    2. Cécile Bourreau-Dubois & Myriam Doriat-Duban & Bruno Jeandidier & Jean-Claude Ray, 2023. "Do child support guidelines result in lower inter-judge disparity? The case of the French advisory child support guidelines," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 55(1), pages 87-116, February.
    3. Cécile Bourreau-Dubois & Myriam Doriat-Duban & Bruno Jeandidier & Jean Ray, 2020. "Do sentencing guidelines result in lower inter-judge disparity ? Evidence from framed field experiment," Working Papers hal-02978348, HAL.
    4. Cécile Bourreau-Dubois & Bruno Deffains & Myriam Doriat-Duban & Bruno Jeandidier, 2021. "Guidelines: Decision-Making Tools for Litigantsand Judges [Les barèmes, outils d’aide à la décision pour les justiciables et les juges]," Post-Print hal-03054417, HAL.
    5. John Zhuang Liu & Xueyao Li, 2019. "Legal Techniques for Rationalizing Biased Judicial Decisions: Evidence from Experiments with Real Judges," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 16(3), pages 630-670, September.
    6. Christoph Engel, 2022. "Judicial Decision-Making. A Survey of the Experimental Evidence," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2022_06, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.

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