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This chapter investigates the role of emotions and cognitive biases in legal contexts, highlighting their pervasive influence on judgment, decision-making, and professional practice. Emotions and biases are presented as mutually reinforcing processes: emotions shape perception and memory, while biases consolidate and amplify emotional responses. Emotional dynamics inevitably enter the courtroom, influencing judges, lawyers, and litigants. The discussion begins with foundational debates on the nature and classification of emotions, from basic universal emotions to complex social emotions such as guilt, shame, pride, and resentment, many of which have direct legal relevance. The chapter examines how these emotions operate as adaptive mechanisms, shaping strategies of survival, cooperation, and justice-seeking. Concepts such as emotional intelligence, emotional regulation, and epistemic emotionality are explored as essential professional skills, challenging the narrow conception of lawyering based on analytical reasoning alone. The second part focuses on bounded rationality, heuristics, and cognitive biases. Drawing on psychology, behavioral economics, and legal realism, the chapter outlines the systematic deviations that affect legal reasoning, including the endowment effect, status quo bias, equity-seeking bias, reactive devaluation, anchoring, hindsight bias, and overconfidence. These mechanisms, while sometimes adaptive, often distort negotiation, adjudication, and conflict resolution, producing inefficiencies and inequalities. The emerging concept of “noise” is also introduced, describing random variability in judgments that undermines consistency and equal treatment. Finally, the chapter addresses strategies to mitigate the impact of biases and emotions through ecological rationality, nudging, decision hygiene, and algorithmic decision-making. While acknowledging ethical and practical limits, it argues for a more nuanced integration of emotional awareness and cognitive science into legal education and practice. Law, rather than being purified of emotions and biases, must account for them in order to enhance fairness, protect dignity, and improve the quality of justice.

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Emotions and Biases Inside and Outside the Courtroom

  • 章节

  • 发表日期：

    2026年

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  • Luigi Cominelli,
  • Claudio Lucchiari

摘要

This chapter investigates the role of emotions and cognitive biases in legal contexts, highlighting their pervasive influence on judgment, decision-making, and professional practice. Emotions and biases are presented as mutually reinforcing processes: emotions shape perception and memory, while biases consolidate and amplify emotional responses. Emotional dynamics inevitably enter the courtroom, influencing judges, lawyers, and litigants. The discussion begins with foundational debates on the nature and classification of emotions, from basic universal emotions to complex social emotions such as guilt, shame, pride, and resentment, many of which have direct legal relevance. The chapter examines how these emotions operate as adaptive mechanisms, shaping strategies of survival, cooperation, and justice-seeking. Concepts such as emotional intelligence, emotional regulation, and epistemic emotionality are explored as essential professional skills, challenging the narrow conception of lawyering based on analytical reasoning alone. The second part focuses on bounded rationality, heuristics, and cognitive biases. Drawing on psychology, behavioral economics, and legal realism, the chapter outlines the systematic deviations that affect legal reasoning, including the endowment effect, status quo bias, equity-seeking bias, reactive devaluation, anchoring, hindsight bias, and overconfidence. These mechanisms, while sometimes adaptive, often distort negotiation, adjudication, and conflict resolution, producing inefficiencies and inequalities. The emerging concept of “noise” is also introduced, describing random variability in judgments that undermines consistency and equal treatment. Finally, the chapter addresses strategies to mitigate the impact of biases and emotions through ecological rationality, nudging, decision hygiene, and algorithmic decision-making. While acknowledging ethical and practical limits, it argues for a more nuanced integration of emotional awareness and cognitive science into legal education and practice. Law, rather than being purified of emotions and biases, must account for them in order to enhance fairness, protect dignity, and improve the quality of justice.