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"Emphasis Framing and Political Decision Making" published on by Oxford University Press.

This article examines the boundaries of motivated reasoning in legal decision making. We propose a model of attitudinal influence involving analogical perception. Attitudes influence judgments by affecting the perceived similarity between a target case and cases cited as precedent. Bias should be most apparent in judging similarity when cases are moderately similar on objective dimensions. We conducted two experiments: the first with undergraduates, the second with undergraduates and law students. Participants in each experiment read a mock newspaper article that described a "target case" involving unlawful discrimination. Embedded in the article was a description of a "source case" cited as legal precedent. Participants in both studies were more likely to find source cases with outcomes that supported their policy views in the target dispute as analogous to that litigation. Commensurate with our theory, there was evidence in both experiments that motivated perceptions were most apparent where cases were moderately similar on objective dimensions. Although there were differences in the way lay and law student participants viewed cases, legal training did not appear to attenuate motivated perceptions.

Students of public opinion have increasingly recognized issue framing as an important influence on political attitudes, but the precise means by which frames affect attitudes is not well understood. We argue that one distinctive way in which frames affect attitudes is by influencing the importance that individuals attach to issue-relevant beliefs. We contrast this mechanism with the more familiar means of persuasion via change in belief content. Data come from two laboratory experiments. In each, a controversial issue was framed in one of two ways. We measured framing's influence on belief content, belief importance, & issue opinion. In both experiments, framing significantly affected issue opinion. Causal analysis shows that framing independently affected belief content & belief importance, & that each contributed to issue opinion. 3 Tables, 3 Figures, 4 Appendixes, 49 References. Adapted from the source document.