TY - JOUR
T1 - Coordination and expertise foster legal textualism
AU - Hannikainen, Ivar R.
AU - Tobia, Kevin P.
AU - de Almeida, Guilherme da F.C.F.
AU - Struchiner, Noel
AU - Kneer, Markus
AU - Bystranowski, Piotr
AU - Dranseika, Vilius
AU - Strohmaier, Niek
AU - Bensinger, Samantha
AU - Dolinina, Kristina
AU - Janik, Bartosz
AU - Lauraitytė, Eglė
AU - Laakasuo, Michael
AU - Liefgreen, Alice
AU - Neiders, Ivars
AU - Próchnicki, Maciej
AU - Rosas, Alejandro
AU - Sundvall, Jukka
AU - Żuradzki, Tomasz
N1 - Funding Information:
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. This research was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (PID2020-119791RA-I00; RTI2018-098882-B-I00), the Polish National Science Centre (2020/36/C/HS5/00111; 2017/25/N/HS5/00944), the Swiss National Science Foundation (PZ00P1_179912), and the European Research Council (805498).
Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2022 the Author(s).
PY - 2022/11/1
Y1 - 2022/11/1
N2 - A cross-cultural survey experiment revealed a dominant tendency to rely on a rule's letter over its spirit when deciding which behaviors violate the rule. This tendency varied markedly across (k = 15) countries, owing to variation in the impact of moral appraisals on judgments of rule violation. Compared with laypeople, legal experts were more inclined to disregard their moral evaluations of the acts altogether and consequently exhibited stronger textualist tendencies. Finally, we evaluated a plausible mechanism for the emergence of textualism: in a two-player coordination game, incentives to coordinate in the absence of communication reinforced participants' adherence to rules' literal meaning. Together, these studies (total n = 5,794) help clarify the origins and allure of textualism, especially in the law. Within heterogeneous communities in which members diverge in their moral appraisals involving a rule's purpose, the rule's literal meaning provides a clear focal point-an identifiable point of agreement enabling coordinated interpretation among citizens, lawmakers, and judges.
AB - A cross-cultural survey experiment revealed a dominant tendency to rely on a rule's letter over its spirit when deciding which behaviors violate the rule. This tendency varied markedly across (k = 15) countries, owing to variation in the impact of moral appraisals on judgments of rule violation. Compared with laypeople, legal experts were more inclined to disregard their moral evaluations of the acts altogether and consequently exhibited stronger textualist tendencies. Finally, we evaluated a plausible mechanism for the emergence of textualism: in a two-player coordination game, incentives to coordinate in the absence of communication reinforced participants' adherence to rules' literal meaning. Together, these studies (total n = 5,794) help clarify the origins and allure of textualism, especially in the law. Within heterogeneous communities in which members diverge in their moral appraisals involving a rule's purpose, the rule's literal meaning provides a clear focal point-an identifiable point of agreement enabling coordinated interpretation among citizens, lawmakers, and judges.
KW - coordination
KW - cross-cultural research
KW - legal decision making
KW - moral judgment
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85140664233&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1073/pnas.2206531119
DO - 10.1073/pnas.2206531119
M3 - Article
C2 - 36282920
AN - SCOPUS:85140664233
SN - 0027-8424
VL - 119
SP - e2206531119
JO - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
IS - 44
M1 - e2206531119
ER -