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Law and the Emotions: the Problems of Affective Forecasting Indiana Law Journal Volume 80 Issue 2 Article 1 Spring 2005 Law and the Emotions: The Problems of Affective Forecasting Jeremy A. Blumenthal Seton Hall Law School Follow this and additional works at: https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/ilj Part of the Law Commons, and the Psychology Commons Recommended Citation Blumenthal, Jeremy A. (2005) "Law and the Emotions: The Problems of Affective Forecasting," Indiana Law Journal: Vol. 80 : Iss. 2 , Article 1. Available at: https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/ilj/vol80/iss2/1 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law School Journals at Digital Repository @ Maurer Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Indiana Law Journal by an authorized editor of Digital Repository @ Maurer Law. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Law and the Emotions: The Problems of Affective Forecasting JEREMY A. BLUMENTHAL* Legal scholarship on "behavioralism"and the implicationsof cognitive biasesfor the law is flourishing. In parallelwith the rise of such commentary, legal scholars have begun to discuss the role of the emotions in legal discourse. This discussion often addresses the "appropriateness"of various emotionsfor the substantive law, or attempts to model the place of the emotions in the law. Implicit in some of these theories, however, and explicit in others, is the assumption that emotions are "predictable," "manageable,"and (for some commentators) under conscious control. This assumption is belied by psychological research on affective forecasting that demonstratespeople's inability to accurately predictfuture emotional states, both their own and those of others. Such inaccuracyhas surprisingly broad implicationsfor both substantiveand procedural aspects of the legal system. Affective forecasting researchalso demonstrates the implausibilityof some theoretical models of law and the emotions; if these models areflawed, then the normative conclusions drawn from them may be flawed as well. I review here the empiricaldata demonstratingthat individualspredict emotions inaccurately, and spin out the implications of this researchfor a number of substantive legal areas.The data show potentialflaws in the way civiljuries assign compensatory awards,and in our approach to certain aspects of sexual harassment law. The findings have profound implicationsfor the presentation of victim impact statements to capitaljuries, but also undercut some abolitionist claims regardingthe suffering that death row prisonersexperience. Contract law is implicated by these findings as well, especially in the context of contracts for surrogate motherhood. Finally, the data are also relevant to the area of health law where, for instance, they apply broadly to the use of advance health directives, and more specifically to the context of euthanasia.I also discuss broaderissues, such as the implications of the affective forecasting researchfor theories of law and the emotions. In this discussion I include some of the specific drawbacks to some current theories. I also address the data's implicationsfor the very theories of welfare and well-being that underlie much legal policy, and speculate about implicationsfor paternalisticpolicy initiatives. * Jeremy A. Blumenthal, Faculty Fellow, Seton Hall Law School (2003-2005). A.B., A.M., Ph.D., Harvard University; J.D., University of Pennsylvania Law School. E-mail: [email protected] or [email protected]. I am grateful to Associate Dean Kathleen M. Boozang for facilitating the writing of this paper. The Article is better because of my discussions with Judy Bernstein, Carl Coleman, Rachel Godsil, Tristin Green, John Jacobi, Solangel Maldonado, David Opderbeck, Charles Sullivan, and John Wefing. Thanks to Peter Ditto for directing me to some of his work. A number of people were kind enough to give feedback after reading drafts: Stephen Burbank, Carl Coleman, Phoebe Ellsworth, Dan Gilbert, Rachel Godsil, Tristin Green, Chris Guthrie, Peter Huang, Andrea McDowell, Marc Poirier, Jeff Rachlinski, Chris Sanchirico, Dan Solove, Charles Sullivan, and Tim Wilson. I also received helpful comments at a presentation at the Arizona State University School of Law and at the American Psychology/Law Society Conference in Scottsdale, Arizona. I appreciate the several suggestions all these people made that improved the Article-as well as those that would have improved it had I listened. Martin Foncello provided helpful research assistance. Finally, Ms. Silvia Cardoso provided substantial administrative assistance, for which I am grateful. The Article is dedicated to my parents, Peter and Mollyann Blumenthal. 156 INDIANA LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 80:155 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................... 157 1. AFFECTIVE FORECASTING ............................................................................ 165 A. PredictingFuture Feelings .................................................................. 166 B. Causes of Prediction Error.................................................................. 172 1. Phenomenology .............................................................................173 2. Teleology ...................................................................................... 176 C. Caveats .......................................... 177 1. Self-Report Biases ....................................................................... 177 2. Predicting Own versus Others' Experiences ............... 178 3. Individual Differences .................................................................. 180 II. IMPLICATIONS OF INACCURATE AFFECTIVE FORECASTING FOR THE LEGAL SYSTEM .............................................................................. 181 A. Applications Inside the Courtroom...................................................... 182 1. Civil Damage Awards ................................................................... 182 a. Implications for Civil Damage Awards ................................. 182 b. Potential Remedies ................................................................ 187 2. Capital Punishment ....................................................................... 189 a. Victim Impact Statements ...................................................... 189 (1) Implications for Capital Sentencing Juries ................................................ 189 (2) Educating Capital Sentencing Juries ................. ............................................................. 191 b. Affective Forecasting and the "Death Row Phenomenon .......................................................................192 3. Judgments Regarding Sexual Harassment ..................................... 201 4. Litigants' Emotional Expectations ................................................ 204 B. Applications Outside the Courtroom ................................................... 208 1. Start-of-Life Issues ....................................................................... 209 a. Surrogate M othering .............................................................. 209 b. Disposition of Frozen Embryos ............................................. 215 2. End-of-Life Issues: Euthanasia and Advance Directives ..................................................................................... 217 3. Mid-Life Issues: Informed Consent and M edical Treatments ...................................................................... 223 C. Caveats ...............................................................................................225 1. The Current State of the Research ................................................ 226 2. Applying Social Science Data to the Legal System ...................... 227 III. THEORETICAL IMPLICATIONS ....................................................................... 230 A. Implicationsfor Theories of Welfare ................................................... 230 B. Implicationsfor Theories of Law and Emotions .................................. 231 C. Implicationsfor Paternalism........................... 234 CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................... 237 2005] L4W AND THE EMOTIONS INTRODUCTION By many accounts, "law and economics,"' with its assumptions of rational actors and rational actions, began in the 1960s, with Ronald Coase's influential work on bargaining, negative externalities, and rules of allocation,2 Guido Calabresi's application of economics to tort law,3 and Gary Becker's economic analysis of crime and punishment.4 Others trace the implicit use of economic reasoning in judicial decisions back further, through the growth and development of the common law.' And even earlier, Jeremy Bentham had laid out a classic discussion of rational cost-benefit analysis in his treatment of punishment and deterrence.6 One of the central tenets of such economic analysis, of course, is that of the rational decisionmaker: through an exercise of intelligent reason (conscious or unconscious 7 ), humans act rationally, seeking to maximize our welfare by "choosing the best means to [our] ends";8 we are motivated to maximize our happiness or utility or wealth,9 we fully consider the 1. RICHARD A. POSNER, THE ECONOMICS OFJUSTICE 3 (1983) (using the term to refer to the economic analysis of law). 2. Ronald H. Coase, The Problem of Social Cost, 3 J.L. & ECON. 1 (1960). Coase's article was in turn expanded upon by Calabresi and Melamed's
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