Release date: Jan. 12, 2006
Contact: Beverly Cox Clark at 404-712-8780 or beverly.clark@emory.edu

Alito's Judgment Could Be Clouded by Emotional Bias, Says Emory Psychologist

President George W. Bush and Judge Samuel A. Alito address the media in the Rose Garden Monday, Jan. 9, 2006, before Judge Alito's confirmation hearings began later that day. White House photo by Kimberlee Hewitt

Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito has testified during his Senate confirmation hearing that "good judges are always open to the possibility of changing their minds," but Emory psychologist Drew Westen says that may not be the case. "People are strongly influenced by emotional biases in their decision making," says Westen, who has done research to test whether or not people make decisions based on emotional bias or fact, and found that emotions win by a landslide.

"When people are making high-stakes political judgments, whether they are voters or Supreme Court justices, they often come up with the justification to back up their emotion-driven desires about how things should be, rather than decide based on carefully examining the data. Their self-reports of how they came to their conclusions are completely untrustworthy – not necessarily because they intend to lie, but because emotions tend to recruit thoughts to fit them in circumstances," Westen says.

Westen is director of clinical psychology at Emory. Reach him at 404-727-7407 or dwesten@emory.edu.

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