Public Attitudes about Supreme Court Decision-Making:
Sources of Instability in Beliefs about Legal Realism
Michael J. Nelson
Assistant Professor of Political Science
The Pennsylvania State University
Pond Laboratory
University Park, PA 16802
mjn15@psu.edu
Phone: 515.351.9686
and
Steven S. Smith
Kate M. Gregg Distinguished Professor of Social Science
Professor of Political Science
Washington University in St. Louis
One Brookings Drive
Campus Box 1027
St. Louis, MO 63130-4899
smith@wustl.edu
Phone: 314.935.5630
Fax: 314.935.5688
Public Attitudes about Supreme Court Decision-Making:
Sources of Instability in Beliefs about Legal Realism
Abstract
Despite evidence that public perceptions of the U.S. Supreme Court affect
its public support, these attitudes are seldom measured and have never before
been measured in a panel study. We report new data regarding perceptions of
judicial decision-making, the effect of a high profile decision on those beliefs, and
the relationship of those beliefs to diffuse support for the Court. Additionally, we
find that individuals exhibit predictable and previously unreported variability in
attitudes over time. We find that views of justices’ decisions are pliable, that
changes in those views are predicted by attitudes about a recent case, and that
knowledgeable Americans show no less pliability than others. We find support for
the proposition that changes in views of the Court’s decisionmaking are
conditioned by attitudes about the issue at stake and political identities that
generate motivated reasoning.
Public Attitudes about Supreme Court Decision-Making:
Sources of Instability in Beliefs about Legal Realism
There has been a resurgence of interest in the determinants of public
support for the U.S. Supreme Court (Bartels and Johnston 2013; Gibson and
Nelson 2014; Christensen and Glick 2014). Because the Court’s support is not
replenished by periodic elections and its justices are appointed for life, the
legitimacy of the U.S. Supreme Court is of particular concern to scholars (e.g.
Gibson 2012). Indeed, if, as scholars suggest, low levels of diffuse support signal a
willingness to advance fundamental changes to the Court, a Court with low levels
of public support should become increasingly unlikely to exercise its power of
judicial review and fulfill its democratic assignment as a check against the
legislative and executive branches of government (Caldeira and Gibson 1992;
Gibson and Nelson 2014).
The literature on diffuse support suggests that perceptions of decisionmaking processes shape overall diffuse support for an institution (Tyler 2006).
For the judicial branch, scholars sometimes advance the argument that decisionmaking processes that are perceived are fair and unbiased—a quality called
procedural fairness—are one way that courts can improve their public support
(Tyler 1990). Conversely, decisions perceived as unprincipled, arbitrary, or
reached through unfair procedures may decrease diffuse support.1 As Baird and
Gangl write, “perceptions of procedural fairness are the foundation of
assessments of institutional legitimacy” (Baird and Gangl 2006, 601). Indeed,
this argument has taken hold so strongly among practitioners that the American
Judge’s Association now offers its members suggestions on how to foster
procedural fairness in their courtrooms (American Judges Association 2007;
Burke and Leben 2007).2
Surprisingly, despite the enormous importance of this topic, the scholarly
literature on both perceptions of judges’ decision-making practices and the
effects of those perceptions on institutional support is rather scant. We know
little about how average citizens believe that justices do make decisions and even
less about how they believe justices should decide cases. In one of the few
examinations of the public’s perceptions of judicial decision-making, Gibson and
Caldeira (2011) suggest that Americans—and knowledgeable Americans even
1
There has been some debate on the extent to which perceptions of procedural
fairness contribute to diffuse support (Gibson 1989; Tyler 1989; Tyler and Rasinski
1992).
2
To be clear, we are not arguing that perceptions of unbiased decision-making are
the only determinant of procedural fairness. Clearly, that is not true (e.g. Tyler
1989). Instead, we argue that such perceptions are one component of procedural
fairness.
more so—are not likely to turn against the Court on the basis of specific
decisions.3
Moreover, because it is based on cross-sectional experimental and
observational data, the current literature is unable to make and test claims about
the interplay between perceptions of influences on justices’ decisions and support
for the U.S. Supreme Court as they evolve over time. We do not know whether
diffuse support for the Court or beliefs in legal realism are stable among
Americans, or even among knowledgeable Americans. Given that even the
staunchest supporters of the Court’s deep reservoir of support posit that a string
of unpopular decisions has the potential to undermine the judiciary’s public
support (Caldeira and Gibson 1992; Gibson, Caldeira, and Baird 1998),
understanding the dynamics of attitudes toward the Court’s support and the
public’s perceptions of the Court’s decision making is vital.
We take up this challenge in this paper. Our purpose is to provide an
appropriate panel-based test of hypotheses about change in views of Court
decision-making biases that may be conditioned by evaluations of a prominent
Court decision, acquired diffuse support, respondents’ social and political
identities, and their level of political knowledge. We outline the hypotheses
generated by recent developments in theories of legitimacy and motivated
reasoning and their application to public attitudes about the Supreme Court. We
describe a panel survey conducted before and after the Supreme Court’s health
3
For an examination of the determinants and consequences of judicial
decisionmaking outside of the United States, see Baird (2001).
care reform decision of June 2012 and specify testable hypotheses about attitudes
about justices’ decisions.
Our analysis has two purposes. First, we seek to understand the
determinants of cross-sectional views of justices’ decision making and the extent
to which these views change in response to a high profile decision. On this count,
we find that views of justices’ decisions are pliable, that changes in those views
are predicted by attitudes about a recent case, and that knowledgeable Americans
show no less pliability than others. Second, we study the consequences of citizens’
views of judicial decision making on the Court’s public support. We find that the
balance of opinion is supportive of the Court and supports a realists’
interpretation of the Court, although individuals exhibit predictable variability in
attitudes over time.
Competing Perspectives on Public Views of the Factors
that Influence Justices’ Decisions
The science of Americans’ attitudes toward the Supreme Court has been
motivated by a concern about the legitimacy of unelected justices. Judges in state
courts face some form of check on their service, but federal judges do not face the
same constraints so the public’s perceptions of the federal courts are considered
particularly important for the courts’ efficacy.4 The legitimacy of the federal
courts, it is argued, is enhanced by care in selecting judges, extensive formal
4
Gibson (2012) shows that the electoral process used to select judges in the U.S.
states does, on balance, increase the legitimacy of those institutions.
procedures, elaborate rulings, reliance on precedent, and use of numerous
symbols of justice and fairness (Bickel 1986; Breyer 2010; Dworkin 1986; Fried
2000). If judicial decisions are not mechanical applications of the law, they
should at least reflect principled, sincere judgments about how the law ought to
be applied (Gibson and Caldeira 2011).
Concerns about the bases for judicial opinions are not without
consequence. Baird (2001), examining the bases of diffuse support for courts in
East and West Germany, finds that West Germans who believed that judges
should follow legalistic procedures had higher levels of diffuse support for the
Court, although retrospective evaluations of the Court’s actual decision making
practices were not related to diffuse support. Likewise, Baird and Gangl (2006)
find that perceptions about whether justices follow legalistic or political (e.g.
bargaining and compromising) processes when deciding a case have effects on
their perceptions of the Court independent of their policy agreement with the
Court’s outcome.
Of course, understanding of the relationship between perceptions of the
factors that influence justices’ decision and support for the Court requires an
accurate characterization of those perceptions and the forces that shape them.
Here, two theoretical arguments offer guidance. The first, legitimacy and
positivity theories, focuses on factors that produce consensus in favor of the
Court and suppress change in support that might otherwise be a response to
controversial Court decisions. The second emphasizes how motivated reasoning
and the biases shaped by political identities may bifurcate attitudes about the
Court in response to controversial decisions and limit overall support for the
Court. Both perspectives warrant discussion.
Legitimacy and Positivity Theories
Legitimacy theory concerns the conditions under which individuals find
the actions of individuals or institutions proper, just, or authoritative—that is,
legitimate (Tyler 2006). Legitimacy produces deference and voluntary
compliance, which, in the case of the Court, is concerned essential to its efficacy.
It appears that the perception of fair and just procedures, the hallmark of legal
argument and processes, is essential to legitimacy (Gibson 2002; Tyler 2000). In
contrast, open fights to create biased processes in legislatures and other
institutions undermine the perceived legitimacy of their decisions. Rationality,
neutrality, and factuality count, too, but elaborate legal processes also contribute
to the perception that those tests are met (Tyler 2006).
In political science studies of public attitudes about the Court, all based on
cross-sectional surveys, have emphasized legitimacy theory and the presence of
broad support for the Court (Gibson, Caldeira, and Spence 2003). Gibson and
Caldeira (2011, 200) summarize the political science on the subject with the
observation that “the Supreme Court profits from a large store of reasonably
stable institutional support.” The Court, they argue, is viewed by the public as
playing a “non-political” role in the American system.
Socialization has long played a central role in accounts of the legitimacy of
political institutions (Easton 1965; Sears 1975). In part, socialization involves the
acceptance of myths or stereotypes (Baird and Gangl 2006). For some social
actors and institutions, this may include acceptance of the fairness or justness of
decisions (Tyler 2006). Through socialization, support for an institution can
become internalized, serve as the basis for deference, and become difficult to
undermine. The legitimacy associated with an institution can become “sticky”
(Gibson, Caldeira, and Baird 1998).
Naturally, scholars have examined cross-sectional variation in support for
the Court. The most important finding is that knowledge of the political system
produces support for the Court (Gibson and Nelson 2014). Labeled “positivity
theory” by Gibson and Caldeira (2009), the argument is that knowledge of the
Court comes with greater exposure to the legitimizing legal processes and
symbols associated with the Court. They may be the most fully socialized to the
political system. These sophisticated people, who also tend to be engaged and
partisan and therefore may be the most important to the Court’s efficacy, are the
most supportive of the Court.
Gibson and Caldeira (2011) demonstrate that the legitimacy of the U.S.
Supreme Court does not depend on a public belief that justices apply autonomous
legal principles in a mechanical, non-ideological way. Rather, Americans both
admire the role of the Court and also recognize the role that discretion and
personal views play a role in decision-making. They find that “as knowledge
increases, the connection between the belief that judges are not merely politicians
in robes and institutional support increases” (211)—knowledge generates both
stronger beliefs in legal realism and more diffuse support. They infer that the
Court’s “legitimacy seems to flow from the view that discretion is being exercised
in a principled, rather than strategic, way” (Gibson and Caldeira 2011, 213). They
attribute this combination of attitudes among Americans to the prominent
symbols of “fairness and legality” associated with the Court and its rulings (214).
Motivated Reasoning and Identities
A long-standing theme of social science is that individuals are subject to a
variety of biases in how they perceive, process, and evaluate the world around
them. Motivated reasoning theory emphasizes that reasoning processes become
biased when they are motivated by goals beyond accuracy (Kunda 1990; Munro,
et al., 2002; Tabor and Lodge 2006). While holding an important policy
preference or ideological outlook, evaluations of an event may lead people to
selectively perceive factors that influenced the outcome. In the case of Court
decisions, we would expect individuals’ attitudes about the policy or
constitutional principles at stake to influence their evaluations of the justices’
decision-making processes.
Simon and Scurich (2011) find that evaluations of judges’ decision-making
processes are conditional on decision outcome. They experimentally
manipulated a vignette with four types of reasoning reported for judges’ decisions,
varying from no rationale provided to multiple, two-sided reasons provided in the
reported decisions. They found that panelists were far more likely to find an
outcome acceptable if it was accompanied by a ruling with more elaborate
reasoning, which comports with the view that the usually elaborate Supreme
Court decisions are widely viewed as legitimate. However, Simon and Scurich
also found that “participants were indifferent toward the modes of reasoning
when they agreed with the outcome of the judges’ decision, but were differentially
sensitive to the judicial reasoning when the judge’s decision frustrated their
preferred outcome. This finding is consistent with the fact that motivated
reasoning influences not only the ultimate conclusion of a decision or inference,
but also the procedures, methodologies, or facts that underlie that judgment”
(2011, 719).
In addition to bias derived from personal goals and evaluations,
individuals may adopt attitudes that are generated by identification with
prominent social groups. Social identity is the categorization of the self as a
member of a social group from which individuals often acquire esteem (Tajfel
1981). Identities often have the power to produce conformity to the group’s
prototype goals and beliefs (Turner 1987). A wide variety of group identities have
been linked with variation in political beliefs or attitudes (Conover 1984),
including ideological, partisan, religious, and ethnic identities. Identification
with elites of any these groups might lead to the adoption of their interpretations
about nature of justices’ decision-making processes. If these interpretations are
simplified and biased, then identifiers of competing groups are likely to accept
divergent views of justices’ biases.
Party identification and ideological identification are forms of identity that
are readily associated with a prominent decision like the PPACA. Party and
ideological elites who are openly identified and widely reported with the issue
provide ready cues. Less obvious is the role of racial identities, although blacks
have been thought to have a group identity that was once shaped by the Warren
Court’s role in deciding cases on civil rights and other issues and then was
reshaped by the shift to the right in the Rehnquist and Roberts Courts (Gibson
and Caldiera 1992; Hetherington and Smith 2007).
Whether grounded in individual- or group-derived biases, recent studies
of public support for the Court emphasize that ideological objections to the Court
and even evaluations of individual cases can generate divergent perceptions of
the Court’s legitimacy (Bartels and Johnston 2013; Christenson and Glick 2013;
Nelson and Smith 2014; Nicholson and Hansford 2014). As Nelson and Smith
(2014) observe, divergent responses to the Court may not change aggregate
diffuse support for the Court or even significantly change the cross-sectional
correlates of support, but the divergent responses challenge the dominant view
that the Court’s reservoir of diffuse public support is stable. They also raise the
possibility that belief in realism is more pliable than Gibson and Caldeira suggest.
Hypotheses
Our view of the limited empirical research on public views of justices’
decision-making processes is that it remains deficient. We structure our analysis
in three parts: understanding the cross-sectional determinants of perceptions of
the factors that influence justices’ decision, understanding change in those
perceptions, and understanding the relationship between perceptions of justices’
decisions and diffuse support for the Court.
In the cross-section, we seek to understand the factors that create
differences in individuals’ views about the role of personal biases and legal
principles in justices’ decisions. Our dependent variable is an individual’s view of
realism in justices’ decision making. Knowledge is the only factor highlighted in
the literature on relationship between the Court’s legitimacy and beliefs in legal
realism (Gibson and Caldeira 2011), but we draw upon the literature on public
opinion and motivated reasoning to posit a more complete model of perceived
decision-making style that accounts for ideological, partisan, and ethnic
identities:
perceived style = ß + ß1 knowledge
+ ß2 ideological identification + ß3 party identification
+ ß4 ethnic identification + ε
The positivity thesis predicts a positive relationship between levels of political
knowledge and belief in legal realism, while, in light of the conservative balance
of justices on the Court, the motivated reasoning thesis predicts ideological,
partisan, and ethnicity effects. These effects are estimated for both before and
after the PPACA ruling.
Second, we seek to understand how respondents’ perceptions of the factors
influencing justices’ decisions changed in response to the 2011 PPACA decision.
We model views of justices’ styles in July about how the justices did decide the
case controlling for how justices were predicted to decide in May, along with
knowledge and policy views:
retrospective perceived style = ß + ß1 prospective perceived style
+ ß2 knowledge + ß3 policy preference + ε
The legitimacy/positivity argument suggests that the PPACA decision will
not change views of justices’ decision-making approach. We will measure
aggregate positive and negative change in perceived style directly. If change
occurs, motivated reasoning and identity theories imply, positive evaluations of
the PPACA outcome (those who favor the act) should produce a positive change
in the way justices’ decision-making styles are viewed, while negative evaluations
(those who oppose the act) should produce a negative change in the way justices’
decision-making styles are viewed—that is, ß3 > 0. We have no prediction for ß2
because we have no reason a priori to argue that knowledge is positively or
negatively related to a particular direction of change in views about justices’
decision-making styles.
Finally, we turn our attention to the consequences of citizens’ perceptions
of justices’ decision-making styles on their diffuse support for the Court. The
Gibson-Caldeira argument treats perceptions of decision-making styles and
knowledge as factors that influence diffuse support for the Court. It is not clear
to us that perceptions of decision-making processes are wholly exogenous to
diffuse support, but we explore the Gibson-Caldeira model with our panel data.
In particular, we estimate this model:
diffuse supportt2 = ß + ß1 diffuse supportt1 + ß2 ∆ perceived style
+ ß3 knowledge + ß4 policy preference + ε
The Gibson-Caldeira account predicts that ß2 > 0. Legitimacy theory predicts ß4
= 0, while motivated reasoning and identity theories predict that ß4 > 0. Again,
there is no prediction for the simple knowledge effect, ß3.
We also reexamine the Baird (2001) argument that diffuse support is
affected by normative, rather than retrospective evaluations. Specifically, we
estimate an equation that accounts for past diffuse support and both normative
and retrospective views of influences on justices’ decisions:
diffuse supportt2 = ß + ß1 diffuse supportt1 + ß2 perceived normative style
+ ß3 perceived retrospective style + ß4 knowledge + ß5 policy
preference + ε
Baird’s argument suggests that ß2 > 0 and ß3 =0.
Data and Measurement
Nelson and Smith (2014) illustrate the power of panel data for the study of
diffuse support for the Court in their study of changing attitudes surrounding the
2012 decision on the 2010 health care law. They find both substantial continuity
in aggregate diffuse support for the Court and predictable shifts in diffuse
support in response to the Court decision. They found that knowledge was
related to diffuse support in the cross section, but they failed to confirm that
knowledge suppresses change in diffuse support.
We exploit the same survey, The American Panel Survey (TAPS), to
measure attitudes toward justices’ decision-making processes. TAPS is a monthly
online survey of about 2000 people. Panelists were first recruited as a national
probability sample with an addressed-based sampling frame in the fall of 2011 by
GfK Knowledge Networks for the Weidenbaum Center at Washington University.
Two replenishment efforts have kept the panel at approximately 2000 panelists.
Individuals without internet access were provided a laptop and internet service at
the expense of the Weidenbaum Center. In a typical month, over 1700 of the
panelists complete the online survey. More technical information about the
survey is available at taps.wustl.edu.
We queried panelists before and after the Court’s decision in National
Federation of Independent Business et al. v. Sebelius, Secretary of Health and
Human Services, et al., on June 28, 2012, the case on the Patient Protection and
Affordable Care Act (PPACA). The first battery of questions was asked in May
2012, the month before the Supreme Court issued its opinion. Two sets of
questions, separated in the survey, addressed the normative (set A) and
prospective (set B) kinds of decision making by justices (Table 1). In July 2012,
the month following the PPACA decision, panelists were asked a set of questions
(set C) about the factors that played a role in justices’ decisions that parallel the
expected factors (set B).
[Table 1 about here]
The questions in sets A, B, and C were identical, with the exception of
slight variations in the prompt. The question stem was, “How big of a role do you
think each of the following [should, would, did] play in the decision of the Court?”
We label the three versions “normative,” “prospective,” and “retrospective.” For
each question, panelists were given a four-option response set: “no role”, “a
minor role”, “a major role,” and “don’t know.”
[Table 2 about here]
Table 2 summarizes those responses, presenting the percentage of
panelists who felt that a given factor should/will/did play “a major role” in the
Court’s decision. From this table, it is clear that the public has strong feelings
about the justices’ use of their personal preferences in their decisions. The
proportion of the public that thinks that the justice’s ideology should play a major
role is less than the proportions for public opinion or executive influence.
Similarly, the differences between the public’s prospective and normative views
on these indicators are revealing: The public doesn’t like an ideological court but
thinks we have one.
To model views of justices’ decision making, we combined the seven
indicators into a single factor. The scales are reliable, with Chrombach’s alphas
of 0.82 (Normative), 0.73 (Prospective), and .68 (Retrospective). For each set of
questions, the results indicate that the responses are unidimensional. The
eigenvalues for the second dimension are .59 (normative), .90 (prospective), .76
(retrospective). For all three sets, each of the seven variables loads more strongly
on the first dimension than any other dimension. Higher values of the scale are
associated with a greater belief in extralegal influence on justices’ decision
making; lower values indicate a greater belief in legalistic decision-making.
[Figure 1 about here]
To understand the distribution of citizens’ beliefs, we turn to Figure 1,
which shows the density of panelists’ normative, prospective, and retrospective
beliefs about the role of extralegal influences in justices’ decision making. The
three lines in each panel show the distribution of all panelists, panelists who
believed that the individual mandate was constitutional, and those panelists who
believed that the mandate was unconstitutional. As the top and center panels
show, the distribution of beliefs for panelists’ normative and prospective views is
the same for both sub-groups: While the majority of panelists believe there
should be little extralegal influence on the Court’s decisionmaking, most panelists
believed that the Court would be influenced by factors other than the law.
The bottom panel of the figure demonstrates that, after the decision,
panelists’ beliefs about extralegal influence are associated with their policy
preferences: panelists who believed the law was unconstitutional (the dashed
line) were more likely to believe there was more extralegal influence in justices’
decisions than those who believed the law was constitutional. The mean level of
extralegal influence among those who believed the mandate was unconstitutional
was .15 while the mean among those who believed the law was constitutional was
-.05, a statistically significant difference.
The key explanatory variable of interest measures panelists’ attitudes
toward the individual mandate portion of the PPACA. Panelists were asked,
“Concerning the requirement that every American must buy health insurance or
pay a fine, do you think that this is constitutional)?” Additionally, we test for the
effect of political knowledge on attitudes toward Supreme Court decision making.
The measure of political knowledge is an additive scale of the number of correct
responses to the eight questions (see Appendix). We also explore whether the
effect of health care attitudes on views about Court’s decision making vary
according to levels of political knowledge.
Findings
We begin our analysis with an examination of the underpinnings of
citizens’ beliefs about the proper influences on justices’ decisions. To this end, we
regressed panelists’ beliefs about normative influences on judicial decision
making on political knowledge, party affiliation, ideology, and a series of
demographic variables. The estimates of the equation are shown in the first
column of Table 3.
[Table 3 about here]
Three patterns are important. First, contrary to the relationship reported
in Caldeira and Gibson (2011), there is an inverse relationship between political
knowledge and beliefs about extralegal influences on justices’ decisions.
Individuals with high levels of political knowledge tend to believe that legal
influences should play a greater role in judicial decision making than do lowknowledge individuals. Second, ceteris paribus, policy preferences do not affect
normative beliefs about influences on justices’ decisions; there is no statistically
significant effect for view of the mandate’s constitutionality.5 Thus, these results
suggest that noninterpretivist views are not only held by liberals. Still,
racial/ethnic identities are related to views about the proper influences on
justices’ decisions. African Americans are more favorable toward extralegal
influences and Hispanic Americans less favorable toward extralegal influences
than other Americans. Indeed, the size of the effect for African Americans is the
single strongest relationship that we find.
To assess the determinants of prospective and retrospective beliefs about
justices’ decision making in the PPACA case, we turn to the second two columns
of Table 3.6 Two findings are of particular significance. First, just as with
5
As shown in the appendix, this finding extends to other measures of policy
preferences: neither liberals and conservatives nor Democrats and Republicans
differ in the extent to which extralegal influences should enter into the Court’s
decision-making process.
6
The appendix contains a variety of analyses to confirm the robustness of these
results. First, we reestimate the model controlling for party identification, and
normative beliefs about the role of legal and extralegal factors on justices’
decisions, more knowledge of the political arena tends to produce a stronger belief
that justices will and were guided by legal principles in their decisions. Second, the
effect of policy views on views of realism changes during the episode. Before the
decision, views of the constitutionality of the mandate were unrelated to views of
judicial realism; after the decision, those who were unhappy with the decision
tended to see more extralegal bias in justices’ decision making. This result
confirms the bivariate relationships seen in Figure 1, where the differences
between those who believed health care is constitutional and those who did not
are greater in the retrospective evaluations than in the prospective evaluations.
[Table 4 about here]
ideology; the substantive results are the same, though the policy preference effect
appears in the ideology coefficient, rather than the health care attitudes coefficient
when all three measures are included in the model. Second, readers may be
concerned about the exclusion of some demographic variables (e.g. age and gender)
are excluded from these cross-sectional models. Models including these variables
are shown in the appendix and their omission has no effect on the results discussed
here. Third, consider in the appendix the interaction between political knowledge
and policy preferences, as suggested by Johnston, Hillygus, and Bartels (2013).
Finally, Table 3 includes measures of health care attitudes as the measure of policy
preferences. In the appendix, we present a model including health care attitudes
rather than attitudes toward constitutionality specifically. In all cases, the results
are robust.
Next, to examine the change between retrospective and prospective
evaluations of the influences on justices’ decisions, we turn to Table 4. Here, we
regressed panelists’ perspective beliefs about extralegal influence on judicial
decision making in the PPACA case, as well as their policy preferences and their
level of political knowledge, on their retrospective beliefs about influences on
justices’ decisions. In the second column of the table, we present the results
including measures of ethnic and political identities. In both models, one’s
prospective views about decision making provide a statistically significant
predictor of one’s retrospective views of judicial decision making. There is
evidence of motivated reasoning: Individuals who believed that the individual
mandate was unconstitutional become more likely (even when controlling for
their prospective views about influences on justices’ decisions) to believe that the
Court was influenced by nonlegal factors. However, when political and ethnic
identities are included in the model, this effect disappears, likely because of
multicollinearity between opinions on health care reform, partisanship, and
ideology. Indeed, 80 percent of conservatives and 87 percent of Republicans
believed that the individual mandate was unconstitutional.
There is also evidence of a relationship between knowledge and
retrospective views of judicial decision-making. As shown in both models, there
is a negative relationship between knowledge and retrospective evaluations,
indicating that the more knowledgeable panelists tend to believe that extralegal
influences play a lesser role in the PPACA decision than less knowledgeable
panelists.
Consistent with the Gibson-Caldeira view that more knowledgeable people
have more durable views of the Court, more knowledgeable people show less
movement in attitudes about the Court than other people. Indeed, the negative
correlation between knowledge and change in respondents’ beliefs is due
primarily to movement among the less knowledgeable panelists. The overall
mean on the prospective and retrospective factors is .12 and .09, respectively, but
for the most knowledgeable half of the sample the means are .012 and .006. In
contrast, for the less knowledgeable half, the difference is starker: a mean of .345
for respondents’ prospective views and a mean of .253 for their retrospective
views.
[Table 5 about here]
Finally, we probe the effects of change in beliefs about the Court’s decision
making on diffuse support for the Court. Table 5 presents OLS estimates the
effects of political knowledge, support for health care, and respondents’
perceptions of the Court’s decision-making style. The first column examines
change in respondents’ retrospective and prospective evaluations of the Court’s
decision. The estimated coefficient is negative, indicating a smaller change in
diffuse support among those individuals whose retrospective evaluations of the
influences on justices’ decisions assign more extralegal influence than they
expected prospectively. Additionally, the estimates confirm the positive
relationship between knowledge and diffuse support and replicate Nelson and
Smith’s (2014) finding about the effects of the health care decision on change in
diffuse support.
Additionally, the second column of Table 5 tests Baird’s (2001) findings
about the relative importance of retrospective and normative assessments of the
influences on justices’ decisions on diffuse support for the Court. Interestingly,
our findings are directly contrary to Baird’s. While Baird finds that normative,
but not retrospective, evaluations have a direct effect on diffuse support for the
Court, we find that retrospective, but not normative, evaluations effect
respondents’ evaluations of Supreme Court decision making. The direction of the
effect is the same in both our study and in Baird’s: belief in legalistic decision
making is associated with higher diffuse support for the Court.7
Conclusion
The TAPS panel data on attitudes toward the Court in the PPACA episode
have provided a direct test of propositions about the conditioning effects of
knowledge, diffuse support for the Court, and motivated reasoning on beliefs
about realism in Court decision making. In the aggregate, views of legal realism
on the Court did not change greatly during the PPACA episode, but individuallevel change is considerable. We have found substantial support for the
7
To explain the differences between our study and Baird’s, we note two clear
differences: (1) we rely on panel data with a salient intervention—the PPACA
decision—between the two waves of the panel while Baird’s data is cross-sectional
and (2) that the institutional contexts in which the West German Constitutional
Court in Baird’s study and the 2011 U.S. Supreme Court in the midst of deciding the
PPACA case operate is vastly different.
proposition that changes in views of legal realism are conditioned by attitudes
about the issue at stake and political identities that generate motivated reasoning.
Separating the effects of knowledge and diffuse support proves difficult, but they,
too, are related to change in views of legal realism.
In the cross-section, greater knowledge is associated with a stronger
preference for reliance on legal principles, contrary to the findings in a previous
study. Moreover, greater knowledge is associated with less emphasis on
extralegal principles—less “realism”—after the decision, controlling for predecision views of realism. These findings fit well with some of the earliest
research about attitudes toward judicial decisionmaking (Casey 1974, Murphy
and Tanenhaus 1968; Murphy, Tanenhaus, and Kastner 1973). As Gibson,
Caldeira, and Baird (1998) put it:
It may be that ordinary people who know little about courts have few
reasons to believe that judges make decisions differently from any other
politicians. Those attentive to courts come to adopt a different view, but
not the view of legal realists. Greater awareness is associated with the
perception that judges are different, that they rely on law not values in
making decisions, that they are "objective" (345).
Thus, our results seem to indicate that more political knowledge is not associated
with a belief that the Court should or will rely on extralegal factors when making
their decisions. We are not as sanguine as Gibson and Caldeira (2011) about how
realism and diffuse support for the Court hang together among more
knowledgeable Americans. Indeed, in contrast to the findings of Gibson and
Caldeira (2011), our results suggest that legal realists tend to be less, rather than
more, knowledgeable about politics.
Finally, our results suggest that perceptions of the factors influencing
justices’ decisions matter. They are not stagnant and they shape citizens’ support
for the Court. Both a greater gap between one’s prospective and retrospective
evaluations of the Court’s performance and one’s retrospective evaluations of the
influences on justices’ decisions are, all else equal, associated with change in
diffuse support for the Court. Indeed, both a greater expectations gap and
retrospective evaluations tilted more heavily toward extralegal influence are
associated with lower diffuse support for the Court, even controlling for one’s
policy preferences and level of political knowledge.
Our panel study demonstrates the value of monitoring public attitudes at
the individual level. Research findings are beginning to accumulate that show
that citizens vary systematically, both in the cross section and over time, in their
perceptions of influences on justices’ decisions and in their diffuse support for
the Court. Of course, the PPACA case, a very salient case, is only one case and its
lasting consequences for attitudes about the Court awaits analysis of additional
cases.
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Table 1. TAPS Questions about Justices’ Decision Making
Asked in May and July 2012.
Normative Set (May 2012)
A. When the Supreme Court rules on the case challenging the requirement that
everyone buy health insurance or pay a fine, how big of a role do you think each
of the following SHOULD play in their decision? [major role, minor role, no role,
don’t know]
1. The personal views of the justices about the health insurance requirement.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
The justices’ analysis and interpretation of the law.
The views of average Americans about the requirement.
The public’s likely reaction to the Court’s decision.
The justices liberal or conservative views.
Whether the justice was appointed by a Democratic or Republican president.
President Obama’s views on the legal issues.
Prospective (May 2012)
B. When the Supreme Court rules on the case challenging the requirement that
everyone buy health insurance or pay a fine, how big of a role do you think each
of the following WILL play in their decision? [major role, minor role, no role,
don’t know]
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
The personal views of the justices about the health insurance requirement.
The justices’ analysis and interpretation of the law.
The views of average Americans about the requirement.
The public’s likely reaction to the Court’s decision.
The justices liberal or conservative views.
Whether the justice was appointed by a Democratic or Republican president.
President Obama’s views on the legal issues.
Retrospective (July 2012)
C. When the Supreme Court ruled on the case challenging the requirement that
everyone buy health insurance or pay a fine, how big of a role do you think each
of the following played in their decision? ? [major role, minor role, no role, don’t
know]
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
The personal views of the justices about the health insurance requirement.
The justices’ analysis and interpretation of the law.
The views of average Americans about the requirement.
The public’s likely reaction to the Court’s decision.
The justices liberal or conservative views.
Whether the justice was appointed by a Democratic or Republican president.
7. President Obama’s views on the legal issues.
Table 2. Percentage saying that a factor plays “a major role” in Supreme Court
decisionmaking in the PPACA case.
All Panelists
"Major Role"
Norm.
Pros.
Retros.
Health Care is
Unconstitutional
Norm.
Pros.
Retros.
Health Care is
Constitutional
Norm.
Pros.
Retros.
Personal Views
18.68
39.15
44.65
20.31
38.34
47.79
15.18
40.89
38.09
Analysis of Law
74.09
73.89
68.84
72.20
72.98
64.68
78.14
75.85
77.47
Avg. Americans
Public's
Response
48.92
20.81
15.39
54.24
21.84
16.17
37.49
18.60
13.75
32.57
19.84
18.82
35.90
20.76
19.98
25.39
17.89
16.40
Lib/Cons Views
Appointing
POTUS
12.77
36.48
48.16
13.87
35.27
46.68
10.41
39.08
51.29
9.84
28.04
30.83
10.14
27.52
32.68
9.20
29.16
26.98
Obama's Views
16.61
21.77
35.31
14.50
23.15
41.41
21.38
18.79
22.64
Table 3. Cross-sectional views of Supreme Court decisionmaking
HC is Unconstitutional
Political Knowledge
African American
Hispanic
Constant
R2
Adjusted R2
N
(1)
Normative
0.09
(0.06)
-0.21*
(0.02)
0.91*
(0.10)
-0.36*
(0.10)
1.36*
(0.17)
0.27
0.27
1417
(2)
Prospective
0.06
(0.06)
-0.09*
(0.02)
0.34*
(0.12)
0.07
(0.10)
0.38*
(0.11)
0.07
0.06
1417
(3)
Retrospective
0.18*
(0.05)
-0.06*
(0.02)
0.13
(0.11)
0.02
(0.06)
0.21*
(0.10)
0.04
0.04
1712
Table 4. Models of retrospective views of decisionmaking in the PPACA case,
conditional on prospective views.
(1)
(2)
Prospective Views
0.20*
0.20*
(0.05)
(0.05)
HC is Unconstitutional
0.17*
0.04
(0.06)
(0.07)
*
Political Knowledge
-0.05
-0.05*
(0.02)
(0.02)
African American
0.15
(0.11)
Hispanic
-0.04
(0.06)
Party Identification
0.04
(0.02)
Ideology
0.04*
(0.02)
Constant
0.16
-0.03
(0.12)
(0.13)
R2
0.08
0.11
Adjusted R2
0.08
0.10
N
1712
1712
Table 5. Change in Diffuse Support for the Court
(1)
Legitimacy at t1
0.69*
(0.04)
Change in Perceived Style
-0.11*
(0.03)
Normative Evaluations
Retrospective Evaluations
HC is Unconstitutional
Political Knowledge
Constant
R2
Adjusted R2
N
-0.30*
(0.06)
0.10*
(0.02)
1.00*
(0.15)
0.52
0.52
1712
(2)
0.62*
(0.05)
-0.09
(0.05)
-0.19*
(0.06)
-0.30*
(0.06)
0.07*
(0.02)
1.36*
(0.27)
0.54
0.54
1712
Figure 1. Density plots showing panelists’ normative, prospective, and
retrospective views of judicial decisionmaking in the PPACA case.
0.4
0.2
0.0
Density
0.6
Normative Views
-2
-1
0
1
2
3
2
3
Belief in Extralegal Influence
0.4
0.2
0.0
Density
0.6
Prospective Views
-2
-1
0
1
Belief in Extralegal Influence
0.2
0.4
All Respondents
Unconstitutional
Constitutional
0.0
Density
0.6
Retrospective Views
-2
-1
0
1
Belief in Extralegal Influence
2
3
Appendix A: Measurement
In this appendix, we describe the measurement of a variety of variables used in
the empirical analyses, both in the main text of the paper and throughout this
appendix.
Normative, Prospective, and Retrospective Index
Information on the factor loadings for the normative, prospective, and
retrospective indexes is shown in Table A1. Overall, the items seem to load well
onto each factor, though the items load more weakly on the retrospective index.
Notably, the item asking respondents about their opinions of the role that the
“analysis of law” should/will/did play in judicial decisionmaking loads poorly on
all three factors.
Diffuse Support
Some of the models in the paper and in the appendix utilize an index of diffuse
support. Our measure is the same as the one used by Nelson and Smith (2014).
The items used in the index, their factor loading, and the percentage of
respondents giving a response supportive of the Court at t1 and t2 are:
If the Supreme Court started making a lot of rulings that most Americans
disagreed with, it might be better to do away with the Court altogether.
[0.76, 70%, 72%]
The right of the Supreme Court to decide certain types of controversial
issues should be reduced. [0.77, 54%, 57%]
The U.S. Supreme Court gets too mixed up in politics. [0.57, 26%, 23%]
Judges on the U.S. Supreme Court who consistently make decisions at
odds with what a majority of the people want should be removed from
their position as judge. [0.78, 49%, 54%]
The U.S. Supreme Court ought to be made less independent so that it
listens a lot more to what the people want. [0.82, 50%, 54%]
It is inevitable that the U.S. Supreme Court gets mixed up in politics;
therefore, we ought to have stronger means of controlling the actions of
the U.S. Supreme Court. [0.82, 45%, 49%]
Common factor analysis indicates that the measure is unidimensional (1st
eigenvalue=3.46; 2nd eigenvalue=0.08).
Religiosity
To measure the extent to which respondents practice a religion in their daily lives,
we relied upon a four question battery. The scale was measured in January 2012.
The four items in the scale are:
How often do you say grace before meals? [loading=0.75]
How often do you pray? [loading=0.81]
How often do you attend religious services? [loading=0.73]
Please indicate which statement comes closest to expressing what you
believe about God [I don’t believe/I have no way to find out/I believe in
some higher power/I believe sometimes/I believe but have doubts/I know
that God exists] [loading=-.75].
Common factor analysis indicates that the measure is unidimensional (1st
eigenvalue=2.32; 2nd eigenvalue=0.07).
Support for Minority Political Liberty
This scale, used by Gibson and Nelson (Forthcoming) measures the degree to
which the respondent favors social order when it comes into conflict with the
liberty of political minorities. The three items in the scale, measured in May 2012,
are:
Society should not have to put up with those who have political
ideas that are extremely different from the majority. (15.44% adopt
the order position [agree]; loading=.63)
It is better to live in an orderly society than to allow people so much
freedom that they can become disruptive. (36.16% adopt the order
position [agree]; loading=.56)
Free speech is just not worth it if it means that we have to put up
with the danger to society of extremist political views. (13.83%
adopt the order position [agree]; loading=.67)
Common factor analysis indicates that the measure is unidimensional (1st
eigenvalue=1.17; 2nd eigenvalue=-0.12).
Support for the Rule of Law
This scale, used by Gibson and Nelson (Forthcoming) measures the degree to
which the respondent favors universalism rather than particularism. The five
items in the scale, measured in May 2012, are:
It is not necessary to obey a law you consider unjust. (75.04% adopt
the rule of law position [disagree]; loading=.59)
Sometimes it might be better to ignore the law and solve problems
immediately rather than wait for a legal solution. (56.96% adopt the
rule of law position [disagree]; loading=.62)
The government should have some ability to bend the law in order
to solve pressing social and political problems. (45.41% adopt the
rule of law position [disagree]; loading=.57)
It is not necessary to obey the laws of a government I did not vote
for. (83.65% adopt the rule of law position [disagree]; loading=.61)
When it comes right down to it, law is not all that important; what's
important is that our government solve society's problems and
make us all better off. (66.54% adopt the rule of law position
[disagree]; loading=.68)
Common factor analysis indicates that the measure is unidimensional (1st
eigenvalue=1.89; 2nd eigenvalue=0.14).
Political Intolerance
The final core democratic value we measured was respondents’ tolerance for the
ability of minority groups to advocate their views. To this end, we queried
respondents in January 2012 about their willingness to allow unpopular groups
to hold a public demonstration. The question stem read:
Next, let's suppose that [THE GROUP] wanted to hold public rallies
and demonstrations in your community to advance their cause, but
that the authorities decided to prohibit it. How would you react to
such a ban by the authorities of a public demonstration by [THE
GROUP]? Would you strongly support the ban, support the ban,
oppose the ban, or strongly oppose the ban"
The groups about which we asked are:
Radical Muslims (48.13% support the ban; loading=.75)
A group of people who are against all churches and religion (36.26%
support the ban; loading=.72)
U.S. Communists (41.12% support the ban; loading=.80)
Religious Fundamentalists (27.39% support the ban; loading=.66)
Common factor analysis indicates that the measure is unidimensional (1st
eigenvalue=2.14; 2nd eigenvalue=-0.06).
Political Knowledge
The measure of political knowledge is an additive scale of the number of correct
responses to the following eight questions:








Do you happen to know whether the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court
serve for a set number of years or whether they serve a life term?
Do you happen to know who has the last say when there is a conflict over
the meaning of the Constitution?
Which one of the parties is more conservative than the other at the
national level? Is it the democrats or the Republicans?
Which party holds a majority of seats in the U.S. House of
Representatives?
Which party holds a majority of seats in the U.S. Senate?
How many decisions with opinions does the Court issue each year? Would
you say that it is less than one hundred decisions with opinions each year,
around five hundred decisions with opinions, or a thousand decisions with
opinions or more per year?
How long is one term for a member of the U.S. Senate?
On which of the following federal programs is the most money spent each
year? Aid to foreign countries, Medicare, subsidies to farmers, or
education?
Appendix B: Robustness and Additional Analyses
Additional Predictors of Diffuse Support
One of the key points in the debate between Bartels and Johnston (2013) and
Gibson and Nelson (2014) is the appropriate control variables to include when
modeling the Supreme Court’s diffuse support. The models presented in Table 5
in the body of the paper omit many of the control variables, such as support for
democratic values, that previous research has suggested are essential predictors
of diffuse support for the Court. To this end, Table A2 replicates the models in
Table 5 of the text, controlling for the battery of explanatory variables included in
Nelson and Smith’s (2014) model of diffuse support.
Note that the substantive conclusions from Table A2 are identical to those shown
in Table 5, and many of the findings of previous research, such as the importance
of democratic values and African American ethnicity in predicting diffuse support
hold when including perceptions of decision-making style, as well.
Additional Predictors of Cross-Sectional Perceived Styles
The models presented in Table 3, which regress normative, prospective, and
retrospective perceived styles on policy preferences, political knowledge, and
ethnicity do not include a variety of demographic and political information about
respondents that one might believe affects both policy preferences or political
knowledge and perceptions of Supreme Court decisionmaking. To this end, Table
A4 reestimates those three models, including respondents’ party identification,
ideology, age, gender, income, and religiosity.
The major findings from Table 3 still hold. There are no differences in
respondents’ normative beliefs about judicial decisionmaking by party
identification, policy preferences, or ideology, and respondents’ levels of political
knowledge structure their perceptions of the Court’s decisionmaking. In Table 3,
beliefs about the constitutionality of the individual mandate were a statistically
significant predictor of retrospective beliefs; that is not the case in Table A3.
Instead, we see that, once controlling for partisanship and ideology, this effect is
seen through ideology. The one major difference between Table 3 and Table A3 is
that the models in Table A3 suggest that Republicans and Democrats had
different prospective beliefs about the extent to which the Court would be
influenced by external forces when deciding the PPACA case.
Differential Effects of Policy Preferences by Level of Knowledge
Johnston, Hillygus, and Bartels (2014) have recently suggested that individuallevel policy preferences may have differential effects by level of political
sophistication. To examine whether this is the case with regard to the public’s
view of the Court’s decisionmaking practices, Table A4 reestimates the model in
Table 3, interacting political knowledge and beliefs about health care
constitutionality. There is no evidence of a statistically significant interactive
effect.
Alternate Measure of Support for Health Care Reform
The measure of health care attitudes used throughout the paper is a dichotomous
variable which indicates whether the respondent prospectively believed that the
individual mandate of the PPACA. The advantage of this measure is that it is
targeted and issue-specific; its disadvantage is that it does not measure overall
attitudes toward health care reform. To this end, we replicate the analyses in
Table 3 and Table 4 using an alternative measure of support for health care
reform more broadly. Panelists were asked, “Do you support or oppose the
federal health care plan that was enacted in 2010?” About 55% of respondents
supported the federal health care plan. Since some individuals opposed the plan
because it went too far while others opposed it because it did not go far enough to
provide coverage to Americans. To this end, we asked opponents of the whether
they opposed the health care plan because it does not go far enough to extend
health care coverage (Liberal Opponents) or because it goes too far in creating a
new plan (Conservative Opponents). 3.40 percent of respondents were liberal
opponents to the law, while 42.1 percent of respondents were classified as
conservative opponents of the health care plan.
Table A5 reports the reestimated models. The first three columns of the table
replicate the models in Table 3 and the final two columns replicate the models in
Table 4. The results are robust. Policy preferences continue to demonstrably
shape respondents’ retrospective views, both in the cross-section and while
controlling for respondents’ prospective views. Likewise ethnicity shapes
normative and prospective views in the cross-section, but not after controlling for
prospective views. Finally, political knowledge exerts a statistically significant
effect in all of the models, indicating that, as knowledge increases, attitudes
toward legal realism decrease.
Table A1. Factor Analysis Factor Loadings.
Normative
Prospective
Retrospective
Personal Views
0.63
0.63
0.58
Analysis of Law
-0.32
-0.12
-0.25
Avg. Americans
0.66
0.44
0.33
Public's Response
0.74
0.57
0.49
Lib/Cons Views
0.70
0.65
0.56
Appointing POTUS
0.72
0.68
0.66
Obama's Views
0.70
0.62
0.58
Table A2. Expanded Legitimacy Model
Legitimacy at t1
Change in Perceived Style
(1)
0.62*
(0.06)
-0.11*
(0.03)
Normative Evaluations
Retrospective Evaluations
HC is Unconstitutional
Political Knowledge
Supreme Court Approval
Party Identification
Support for Minority Liberty
Support for Rule of Law
Political Tolerance
Ideology
Age
African American
Hispanic
Female
Income
Religiosity
Constant
R2
Adjusted R2
N
-0.22*
(0.09)
0.08*
(0.02)
-0.01
(0.09)
-0.02
(0.02)
0.20*
(0.04)
0.05
(0.03)
0.10*
(0.05)
-0.01
(0.02)
-0.00
(0.00)
0.22*
(0.08)
-0.07
(0.10)
-0.01
(0.06)
0.01
(0.01)
-0.04
(0.03)
1.44*
(0.26)
0.57
0.56
1712
(2)
0.57*
(0.07)
-0.09
(0.05)
-0.19*
(0.05)
-0.21*
(0.09)
0.07*
(0.02)
-0.02
(0.09)
-0.03
(0.02)
0.18*
(0.04)
0.04
(0.03)
0.11*
(0.05)
-0.01
(0.02)
-0.00
(0.00)
0.30*
(0.10)
-0.07
(0.10)
-0.02
(0.06)
0.01
(0.01)
-0.05
(0.03)
1.75*
(0.27)
0.58
0.57
1712
Table A3. Cross-sectional models, controlling for partisanship and ideology
HC is Unconstitutional
Political Knowledge
African American
Hispanic
Party Identification
Ideology
Age
Female
Income
Religiosity
Constant
R2
Adjusted R2
N
(1)
Normative
0.09
(0.06)
-0.18*
(0.02)
0.75*
(0.11)
-0.26*
(0.09)
-0.05
(0.03)
0.05
(0.04)
-0.00
(0.00)
-0.11
(0.07)
-0.04*
(0.01)
-0.03
(0.04)
1.54*
(0.17)
0.30
0.30
1417
(2)
Prospective
0.08
(0.07)
-0.07*
(0.02)
0.25*
(0.12)
0.14
(0.12)
-0.05*
(0.02)
0.03
(0.03)
-0.00
(0.00)
0.09
(0.05)
-0.01
(0.01)
-0.03
(0.04)
0.41*
(0.15)
0.08
0.07
1417
(3)
Retrospective
0.04
(0.08)
-0.06*
(0.02)
0.14
(0.14)
0.01
(0.07)
0.04
(0.02)
0.03*
(0.02)
-0.00
(0.00)
-0.04
(0.06)
-0.01
(0.01)
-0.05
(0.05)
0.17
(0.16)
0.07
0.06
1712
Table A4. Cross-sectional models, interacting knowledge and health care
attitudes
(1)
(2)
(3)
Normative
Prospective
Retrospective
HC is Unconstitutional
0.00
0.22
-0.01
(0.17)
(0.15)
(0.12)
Political Knowledge
-0.22*
-0.07*
-0.09*
(0.03)
(0.02)
(0.03)
Knowledge X Health Care
0.02
-0.04
0.04
(0.04)
(0.03)
(0.03)
African American
0.91*
0.34*
0.13
(0.10)
(0.12)
(0.11)
Hispanic
-0.36*
0.07
0.02
(0.09)
(0.10)
(0.06)
Constant
1.42*
0.26*
0.34*
(0.17)
(0.12)
(0.14)
R2
0.27
0.06
0.04
Adjusted R2
0.27
0.06
0.04
N
1417
1417
1712
Table A5. Alternate measure of health care support.
Liberal Opponents
Conservative Opponents
Political Knowledge
African American
Hispanic
(1)
Normative
0.07
(0.25)
-0.09
(0.05)
-0.21*
(0.02)
0.86*
(0.10)
-0.32*
(0.10)
(2)
Prospective
-0.02
(0.18)
-0.07
(0.10)
-0.09*
(0.02)
0.31*
(0.12)
0.09
(0.12)
(3)
Retrospective
0.31
(0.17)
0.21*
(0.07)
-0.07*
(0.02)
0.19
(0.10)
-0.02
(0.07)
Prospective Views
(4)
Retrospective
0.30
(0.16)
0.20*
(0.06)
-0.05*
(0.02)
0.21*
(0.05)
Party Identification
Ideology
Constant
R2
Adjusted R2
N
1.45*
(0.17)
0.27
0.27
1417
0.45*
(0.10)
0.06
0.06
1417
0.26*
(0.10)
0.05
0.05
1712
0.19
(0.12)
0.09
0.09
1712
(5)
Retrospective
0.23
(0.17)
0.10
(0.11)
-0.05*
(0.02)
0.18
(0.09)
-0.05
(0.07)
0.20*
(0.05)
0.04
(0.03)
0.03
(0.02)
-0.01
(0.15)
0.11
0.11
1712