Dissent aversion is the judicial phenomenon that implies that
judge
A judge is a person who wiktionary:preside, presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a judicial panel. In an adversarial system, the judge hears all the witnesses and any other Evidence (law), evidence presented by the barris ...
s do not like
dissenting opinion
A dissenting opinion (or dissent) is an Legal opinion, opinion in a legal case in certain legal systems written by one or more judges expressing disagreement with the majority opinion of the court which gives rise to its judgment.
Dissenting opi ...
s in the jurisdictions where they are possible nor do they like to dissent themselves. A common example is as follows: On a panel of three judges, only one feels strongly about the decision. One of the two remaining may side with the first judge, leaving the third judge with the option of dissenting on an issue they do not feel strongly about or siding with the majority.
[Posner, Richard A ''How Judges Think'' Harvard University Press 2007 pg 32]
Judges dislike dissent for many reasons. Dissent aversion can come from these sources:
[
*It frays ]collegiality
Collegiality is the relationship between colleagues, especially among peers, for example a fellow member of the same profession.
Colleagues are those explicitly united in a common purpose and, at least in theory, respect each other's abilities t ...
(judges have to work together in the future).
*It magnifies the majority opinion
In law, a majority opinion is a judicial opinion agreed to by more than half of the members of a court. A majority opinion sets forth the decision of the court and an explanation of the rationale behind the court's decision.
Not all cases hav ...
.
*It is additional work.
*It detracts from the significance of their own majority opinions.
Dissent is more frequent in US federal courts of appeals where the number of judges is higher.[ According to some research, this is because the larger the court, the less frequently judges must work with each other and accordingly have less incentive to extend courtesy and favors.][Stefanie Lindquist ''"Bureaucratization and Balkanization: The Origins and Effects of Decision Making Norm in the Federal Appellate Courts"''.]
See also
*Publication bias
In published academic research, publication bias occurs when the outcome of an experiment or research study biases the decision to publish or otherwise distribute it. Publishing only results that show a Statistical significance, significant find ...
*Cognitive dissonance
In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance is described as a mental phenomenon in which people unknowingly hold fundamentally conflicting cognitions. Being confronted by situations that challenge this dissonance may ultimately result in some ...
*Selection bias
Selection bias is the bias introduced by the selection of individuals, groups, or data for analysis in such a way that proper randomization is not achieved, thereby failing to ensure that the sample obtained is representative of the population inte ...
*Confirmation bias
Confirmation bias (also confirmatory bias, myside bias, or congeniality bias) is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one's prior beliefs or Value (ethics and social sciences), val ...
Notes
{{reflist, 1
Law and economics