Confronting Cognitive 'Anchoring Effect' and 'Blind Spot' Biases in Federal Sentencing: A Modest Solution for Reforming a Fundamental Flaw
Confronting Cognitive 'Anchoring Effect' and 'Blind Spot' Biases in Federal Sentencing: A Modest Solution for Reforming a Fundamental Flaw
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面对联邦量刑中的认知“锚定效应”和“盲点”偏差：改革基本缺陷的温和解决方案
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发表时间：
2014
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通讯作者：
Mark W. Bennett
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作者：
Mark W. Bennett
认知“锚定效应”偏见，特别是与数字有关的偏见，如量刑指南范围，在认知心理学中被广泛认为是一种非常强大和强大的启发式。这是一种认知捷径，通过将判断“锚定”在一个较早披露的数字上，即锚上，有一种破坏判断的强烈倾向。大量研究证明，锚定偏差在各种情况下都会导致系统性判断错误，包括医生、律师、真实的房地产经纪人、心理学家和审计师等专家的判断，以及外国和美国联邦和州法官的各种判决。锚定效应甚至在锚不完整、不准确、不相关、不可信甚至随机的情况下也会发生。随着对锚定效应的理解不断发展，联邦量刑经历了一场革命，从法官几乎拥有无限的自由裁量权，到几乎没有自由裁量权，再回到相当大的自由裁量权，因为在美国最高法院的一项重大判决中，《联邦量刑指南》从强制性变成了咨询性[美国诉布克案，543 U.S. 220（2005）]。令人惊讶的是，由于法官在布克案中被赋予了大得多的自由裁量权，联邦判决的长度和严重程度，在大多数情况下，并没有改变。尽管联邦地区法院法官对《指导方针》和刑期长期以来一直普遍不满，但这一点仍然存在。本文认为，这是因为法官的判决下意识地锚定计算的指导方针范围。该条款提供了一个简单、适度和实用的解决方案，不需要最高法院或国会修改现行法律。它只需要重新安排陈述报告中的数字锚定信息，并增加额外的相关数字信息，以抵消指南的锚定效果。如果联邦地区法院的法官接受认知锚定效应的教育，以及他们自己对认知锚定的偏见盲点，他们对认知锚定效应的认识的提高只会增强判决的公平性。
Cognitive "anchoring effect" bias, especially related to numbers, like sentencing guidelines ranges, is widely recognized in cognitive psychology as an extremely robust and powerful heuristic. It is a cognitive shortcut that has a strong tendency to undermine judgments by "anchoring" a judgment to an earlier disclosed number, the anchor. Numerous studies prove anchoring bias produces systematic errors in judgment in wide-ranging circumstances, including judgments by experts — doctors, lawyers, real estate agents, psychologists, and auditors — as well as a variety of decisions by foreign and American federal and state judges. The anchoring effect occurs even when the anchor is incomplete, inaccurate, irrelevant, implausible, or even random. Roughly corresponding in time with the developing understanding of the anchoring effect, federal sentencing has undergone a revolution from judges having virtually unlimited discretion, to virtually no discretion, and back to considerable discretion, as the Federal Sentencing Guidelines went from mandatory to advisory in a single monumental U.S. Supreme Court decision, United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005). Surprisingly, since judges were granted much greater discretion in Booker, the length and severity of federal sentences, for the most part, has not changed. This remains true despite long-standing, persistent, and widespread dissatisfaction among federal district court judges with the Guidelines and the length of sentences. This Article argues that this is because judges’ sentences are subconsciously anchored by the calculated Guidelines range. This Article offers a simple, modest, and practical solution that requires no change in existing law by the Supreme Court or Congress. It simply requires rearranging the numerical anchoring information in the presentence report and adding additional relevant numerical information to counteract the anchoring effect of the Guidelines. If federal district court judges are educated about the effect of cognitive anchoring and their own bias-based blind spots to it — their improved awareness can only enhance the fairness of sentencing.