ABSTRACT

The attitudinal model holds that personal policy preferences are the strongest influence, limited by the facts (stimuli) of the controversy at hand, on how a judge will rule on the merits of a case. The first exposition of the attitudinal model as an explanation for how justices on the Supreme Court came to their decisions was put forth by Glendon Schubert, who was influenced by earlier work from psychologist Clyde Coombs. Harold Spaeth and D. Parker, also examined how justices' behavior was influenced by their attitudes. This chapter examines the role of facts, the role of attitudes/ideology, and finally the interaction between the two. The attitudinal model is the most dominant model for understanding the Supreme Court's decisions on the merits. In fact, for the eight justices currently on the Court prior to the 2016 term, the correlation between their ideology and their voting behavior on the Court is a.94.