Suchergebnisse

Dissent behavior as an aspect of small group dynamics is studied as expressed by the conscious choices made by individual judges in the US Court of Appeals to disagree & publicly express this disagreement with a majority of their colleagues. Each of 3 proposed tentative models of decision-making would suggest a diff pattern of dissent: the jurisprudential, model, behavioral models, & a commitment model. 57 decisions at the District of Columbia Court of Appeals during 1956-1962 were examined, under consideration of 3 diff group conditions: congruent, marginal & non-congruent. Each judge's dissent rate was found highest in Condition III (Non-congruent). The following conclusions were reached on the basis of the evidence: (1) The overall dissent rates on the Court under study are relatively low & there is little variation among judge's dissent rates. (2) There is a monotonic progression of increasing dissent rates from the Congruent to Non-Congruent group contexts. (3) All judges dissent most frequently in the Non-Congruent group setting. (4) There is little variation in dissent rates as found in conditions I (congruent) & II (Marginal), but there were substantial variations in condition III. (5) There was a relative lack of concordance among rank orders of judges across the 3 conditions; this suggests that group condition rather than any psychol'al predisposition to dissent was primarily responsible for the distribution of dissent rates across the 3 conditions. The expectations of the jurisprudential model appear contradicted; the model of att commitment seems to provide the best explanation. 5 Tables. M. Maxfield.