Epistemology

Psychology

Chemistry

Programming language

Gender bias

Chromatography

Social psychology

Philosophy

Set (abstract data type)

Curriculum

Ideology

Pedagogy

Sample (material)

Politics

Political science

Subject matter

Motivated reasoning

Computer science

Quality (philosophy)

Judicial opinion

Social Psychological and Personality Science

Although the influence of gender ideology on lay decision-making has been established, it is not known to what extent expertise may mitigate gendered biases and improve decision-making quality. In a set of controlled experiments, trial court judges and laypeople evaluated a hypothetical child custody case and a hypothetical employment discrimination case. The role of expertise was tested in two ways: by comparing judges’ and laypeople’s decision-making and by examining relative differences in expertise among judges. Judges were no less influenced by litigant gender and by their own gender ideology than the lay sample. Judges with greater subject-matter expertise were also no less influenced by gender ideology than other judges. In some cases, expertise was associated with greater, not less, bias. The results of this study suggest that expertise does not attenuate gendered biases in legal decision-making.

Expertise Fails to Attenuate Gendered Biases in Judicial Decision-Making