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. 2021 Apr 27;29(2):256–273. doi: 10.1080/13218719.2021.1904454

Judges’ emotion: an application of the emotion regulation process model

Katie M Snider a,✉, Paul G Devereux b, Monica K Miller c
PMCID: PMC9225732  PMID: 35755150

Abstract

Courtrooms are often emotionally charged atmospheres where parties have a vested interest in the proceedings and their outcomes. Judges are exposed to a wide range of emotions and stressors in the course of their work. Though the ideal of a dispassionate judge persists, more empirical work is needed to identify how judges regulate their own emotional experience in court. Using Maroney and Gross typology of emotion regulation strategies, this study explored the self-reported use and preference of these strategies among a sample of U.S. judges. Using both quantitative and qualitative approaches, we found that judges reported using a variety of intrinsic (self-directed) and extrinsic (directed toward others) emotion regulation strategies, though judges reported using some strategies such as suppression more frequently than others. We also found that many of the strategies judges described matched a subset of the strategies described by Maroney and Gross supporting their typology.

Key words: court, demeanor, emotion, emotion regulation, emotion work, emotional labor, judge, judicial dispassion, law

A good judge is ‘able to divest himself of all fear, anger, hatred, love and compassion . . . ’, Hobbes, 1651/2009, p. 183

Researchers have examined the role of emotion in courts and judicial work more closely in recent years (e.g. Blix & Wettergren, 2018; Roach Anleu & Mack, 2019; Roach Anleu et al., 2016; Toy-Cronin, 2019). Previously, the topic has been under-explored, most likely owing to the belief that emotion does not belong in the courtroom of a dispassionate judge, or the belief that the experience of emotions threatens a judge’s impartiality (Bandes & Blumenthal, 2012). However, studies from Australia and the United States show that judges do experience emotions (e.g. Mack & Roach Anleu, 2010; Roach Anleu & Mack, 2005, 2015; Roach Anleu et al., 2016; Schuster & Propen, 2010; Wistrich et al., 2015) and that judges find it important to manage their own and other court actors’ emotions in the court to facilitate justice (Elek, 2019; Roach Anleu & Mack, 2019). Court cases often invoke strong feelings, for example when cases include testimony about child abuse or other violent crimes. Some judges might even experience secondary traumatic stress as a result of exposure to such emotional content (e.g. Edwards & Miller, 2019). Civil and administrative cases are also likely to elicit strong emotions in judges and litigants when the outcome of the case will have strong repercussions for a litigant’s financial or emotional well-being. Australian judges have reported frequent feelings of sadness and ‘having trouble walking away’ from their work (Roach Anleu & Mack, 2005). As one judge stated, ‘judges cannot help but be affected by ‘seeing absolute misery passing in front of you day in, day out, month in, month out, year in, year out’’ (Roach Anleu & Mack, 2005, p. 611).

Judges report that emotion regulation is a difficult and unacknowledged part of their work, and is an area in which they lack formal training (Elek, 2019; Elek et al., 2017; Maroney, 2013). Experiencing unwanted emotion and trying to suppress it impairs reasoning and memory (Cutuli, 2014; Dillon et al., 2007; Dunn et al., 2009), and for judges this could detract from the cognitive resources available to them for decision-making. People have a variety of tools at their disposal for managing emotions, but not all strategies that people use are equally effective (e.g. Brockman et al., 2017; Maroney, 2011; Nolen-Hoeksema et al., 2008). It is therefore important to understand how judges manage emotions in their role, as this is a skill needed for displaying impartiality (Blix & Wettergren, 2019), which is important to promote perceptions of procedural justice (Leben, 2019). This understanding helps to build a foundation for future research to help judges more effectively address emotions in the courtroom. The overall purpose of this study was to examine both quantitatively and qualitatively the emotion regulation strategies that an understudied group of judges use in the context of their work to manage emotion in their courtrooms by testing the applicability of a theoretically derived typology of emotion regulation.

Emotion regulation

While there are multiple models of emotion regulation in the literature, Maroney and Gross (2014) have specifically proposed a typology of emotion for judicial settings, based on Gross’s (1998) process theory of emotion regulation. This theory describes both antecedent strategies (used to regulate emotions before or during an emotional situation) and response-focused strategies (attempts to control emotion experience or display after an emotional episode has started). For example, situation selection is an antecedent strategy in which people choose to spend time in situations or with people who make them feel good, and avoid upsetting people/situations. Response-focused strategies involve attempts to control one’s emotion after strong feelings have arisen (Wadlinger & Isaacowitz, 2011). Cognitive change can be used as an antecedent emotion regulation strategy (I’m not nervous, I’m excited!), or it can be applied after the emotional episode (My boss wasn’t trying to be mean. She just cares about my success).

Later descriptions of the process theory of emotion regulation (e.g. Gross, 2014) also acknowledge that emotion regulation strategies can be directed toward the self (intrinsic) or toward others (extrinsic). Examples of intrinsic emotion regulation might include attempts to hide frustration or anger. Examples of extrinsic emotion regulation include trying to calm down someone else, or helping others interpret a situation in a more emotionally detached manner. Judges also often have the opportunity, through case briefings and previous interactions with the parties involved, to anticipate the emotional nature of a court case before the proceedings begin; therefore we have included measures to capture anticipatory cognitive change (pre-appraisal) as well.

The judicial context

The courtroom is often an emotionally charged environment, and judges have more than just their own emotions to consider. For example, a judge might need to consider how much exposure a jury should have to particularly gruesome evidence, or whether a child witness should be allowed the use of a testimonial aid (e.g. a court facility dog, or a doll or teddy bear). Further, judges can often experience negative emotions like anger, sadness or fear, because of the emotions experienced by others in their courtroom. This transfer of emotion can even lead to secondary traumatic stress in judges, when they are repeatedly exposed to traumatic stories (see generally Chamberlain & Miller, 2009; Edwards & Miller, 2019). Some studies have examined stress, fear and other specific emotions in the courtroom (Flores et al., 2009; Miller et al., 2010), finding that judges do indeed experience these emotions. Specifically, many experience stress related to their feelings about the victims and defendants (Flores et al., 2009), and it is difficult for judges to disregard their emotional reactions (Wistrich et al., 2015); judges also believed it was their duty to protect jurors from stress and undue emotion (Flores et al., 2009). However, these studies stopped short of asking how judges deal with these emotions (both their own and others). Despite the typology laid out by Maroney and Gross (2014), little empirical evidence exists regarding judges’ use of emotion regulation strategies in court. There are two notable examples that examine the research on this topic and judicial attitudes toward emotion. Maroney (2019) explored three ongoing empirical projects in the context of a proposed taxonomy of research approaches for this topic and emotions generally drawing largely from trial and appellate courts. Building off prior work, in which judges identified emotion management as a component of judicial excellence, Elek (2019) provides an overview of research findings and proposes improvements to judicial training programs.

Administrative law judges

In this study, we included measures based on Maroney and Gross (2014) typology to capture administrative law judges’ (ALJs’) reflections on their attempts to regulate others’ emotions as well as their own. In the United States, ALJs are considered a part of the executive branch of either the state or federal government, and, to our knowledge, judicial emotion has not previously been studied with this population. Perhaps this is because, as triers of fact, ALJs do not preside over jury trials, and the range of emotional content in the cases they hear is not well documented. These judges are typically appointed to work with government agencies to settle disputes related to the work that those agencies conduct. ALJs might work for a specific government agency, such as a department of motor vehicles or social services, or they might work for a more general ‘Office of Administrative Hearings’, which provides administrative judges for other state agencies on an ad hoc basis. The breadth of topics that an ALJ might encounter in their hearings could vary considerably, depending on their agency structure.

Much of the literature about judicial emotion regulation is concerned with the types of highly emotional situations described earlier. However, the work that ALJs do has a direct impact on the lives of litigants, and on the agencies these judges work with. Cases heard by ALJs can be highly emotional for the litigants, even if these cases do not involve physical violence or family separation. Administrative cases can include disputes over unemployment, agency job termination, social security benefits, driver licenses, professional licensure (e.g. daycare, real estate, law enforcement) worker’s compensation, child support, special education and Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) claims.

The models that states use to employ ALJs vary. Many states employ ALJs under a general ‘Office of Administrative Hearings’, whereas in other states, ALJs work as an employee of a specific agency. Some states appear to also have a combination model. Our participant sample of ALJs was not drawn from a single agency. It consisted of judges who practice administrative law in a number of content areas within one geographic region in the United States.

Research questions

In this study, we explored the strategies that judges use to regulate their own and others’ emotions in the courtroom, and in their other professional interactions. Our specific research questions were:

  1. What strategies do judges favor to regulate their own emotions in the courtroom?

  2. What strategies do judges favor to regulate others’ emotions in the courtroom?

In addition to these two questions, which were explored by looking at judges’ ratings on survey items, we wanted to know whether judges would describe their own strategies for emotion regulation in terms that matched the Maroney and Gross (2014) strategies, or whether judges might report use of additional strategies not covered in this typology.

  1. Do judges’ qualitative descriptions of their emotion regulation strategies match the typology presented by Maroney and Gross (2014)?

  2. Are there strategies not mentioned by Maroney and Gross (2014) that judges use to manage their emotions?

Finally, we also wanted to explore the psychometric properties of the scales we developed in this population, to test whether they would be viable solutions for more future research on judicial emotion regulation.

Method

Materials

Two sets of quantitative items and two qualitative questions were developed for this study. The first set of quantitative questions were derived from the process model of emotion regulation (Gross, 2014; Maroney & Gross, 2014) and included items to capture both intrinsic and extrinsic deployment of the emotion regulation strategies (outlined in Table 1). Five response options ranged from ‘strongly agree’ to ‘strongly disagree’ to indicate whether judges used a particular strategy. The second set of quantitative questions included three items developed for this study to capture attitudes related to judicial dispassion and the experience of emotion in court (see Table 2). The open-ended qualitative questions were also developed for this study, to capture judges’ subjective perspectives on how emotion affects their work, and what strategies they recommend for handling emotions at work.

Table 1.

Descriptions of Maroney and Gross (2014) judicial emotion regulation processes.

Strategy Description Question(s)
Situation selection Choosing environments or interaction partners that promote emotion-related goals (e.g. minimizing negative affective states) I go out of my way to interact with coworkers when I think we’ll have a positive interaction, to prevent myself from getting upset.
Situation modification Changing aspects of the environment (e.g. change the discussion topic) to promote emotion goals I try not to talk about negative issues or topics of conflict around coworkers, to help control my emotions.
Attentional deployment Focusing one’s attention on features of the environment to influence emotions When I have a disagreement with someone, I focus my attention on something positive to prevent myself from getting upset.
Cognitive change Modifying the appraisal of the situation to alter the significance of the situation’s emotional impact  
Cognitive pre-appraisal (pre-interaction) Example: preparing for an upcoming interaction by thinking about it in ways that promote emotional goals. When I anticipate a stressful interaction with coworkers, I try to think about it in a way that helps me stay calm.
Cognitive reappraisal (during interaction) Example: during an interaction, thinking about the situation in such a way (e.g. perspective taking) that it promotes one’s emotional goals in that situation. During a stressful interaction with coworkers, I make myself think about it in a way that helps me stay calm.
Cognitive acceptance Accepting situations as they are I try to just accept situations at work, bad or good, because that’s just the way life is sometimes.
Response modulation Attempts to influence the emotional response e.g. behavioral, experiential, and physiological after emotion generating situation has occurred  
Expressive suppression Limiting the behavioral expression or experience of negative or positive emotions At work, I keep my negative emotions to myself.
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Table 2.

Judicial dispassion and emotions in court.

  Strongly disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly agree Total
  n (%) n (%) n (%) n (%) n (%) N
Compared to other judges, I tend to experience more emotions (positive and/or negative) at work. 17 (19) 21 (23) 27 (30)a 8 (9) 17 (19) 90
It can be helpful to express emotions in the courtroom. 10 (11) 19 (20) 10 (11) 7 (7) 49 (52)a 95
Holding back all emotion in the courtroom is essential for justice. 16 (17) 45 (46)a 11 (11) 19 (20) 6 (6) 97
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aRepresents the modal value for the item.

Procedure

The sampling in this study is similar to that in other studies in which judges are sampled during a continuing legal education course (e.g. Guthrie et al., 2001; Wistrich et al., 2015). The third author gave an invited talk for a group of 125 administrative law judges in the western United States. The day-long training encompassed a wide range of topics including judicial stress and emotion regulation. Judges were provided with a paper packet, which included a copy of the informed consent sheet, as well as the qualitative survey questions and a list of further readings. Responses to the survey questions were strictly voluntary, and judges were not required to provide responses to our questions in order to receive education credits for the course.

Judges responded to quantitative survey questions throughout the training session using a ‘clicker’ response system, which works with PowerPoint to capture participant responses in real time. As a standard practice, judges are able to see the aggregated responses from polling questions during these training sessions, and this was true of the survey items in this study. From an educational perspective, this allows the judges to gain a better understanding of how their peers handle the issues raised in the course. Judges could only see the aggregate responses, and did not have the ability to determine how any other member of the class had answered specific questions. Responses were anonymous, and judges’ identities were not tied to their digital or paper responses. The quantitative and qualitative responses were analyzed separately because the handwritten responses were not linked with the electronic responses using a common identifier. Finally, the clicker remotes offered a maximum of five response options, and so all of the scale items were adjusted to work with the available technology.

The first author transcribed the open-ended responses from the judges. In total, 55 judges from the sample turned in packets with qualitative questions, although not all judges answered each of the questions specific to emotion regulation. Both the first and second authors independently coded the participant transcripts, using an a priori coding scheme based on the Maroney and Gross (2014) typology, and met to discuss and reconcile any coding discrepancies so that the final analysis reflected consensus between the coders. Additional themes that emerged during coding are also discussed.

Results

The purpose of this study was to examine the emotion regulation strategies that judges use in the context of their work and to manage emotion in their courtrooms. Because we were interested in applying a theoretical framework to our understanding of judges’ emotion regulation, we also explored the fit of the measurements used, to explore their suitability for inclusion in future research.

Participants

Of the 125 judges in the sample, 108 judges reported at least some demographic information. Most of the participants (n = 93) reported their gender. Of these, 59 (63%) identified as female, and 34 (37%) identified as male. These judges varied widely in their self-reported experience on the bench, which was measured categorically (e.g. ‘<5 years’, ‘5–9 years’, etc.). Thirty-four percent of judges reported serving fewer than five years, whereas over half the sample reported serving at least 10 years as a judge. Of the judges who reported their age group (n = 99), the majority were over 50, with approximately 44% of the judges identifying as ‘60+’ years old, and approximately 30% identifying as ‘50–59’ years old. Information on participants’ race was not collected.

Emotion regulation

Our first two research questions asked what strategies judges favor to regulate (a) their own and (b) others’ emotions at work. We found that judges reported using a variety of both intrinsic and extrinsic emotion regulation strategies, as would be predicted by Maroney and Gross (2014). Consistent with concerns raised in previous publications about the availability of certain strategies for judges (e.g. Maroney & Gross, 2014; Silvestre, 2020), we also found that some strategies were less likely to be chosen by judges in this study. It is unsurprising that strategies such as situation modification and attentional deployment would not be as broadly selected because judges should not choose to distract themselves from the proceedings, and cannot recuse themselves from cases just because they are emotional in nature.

Descriptive statistics

Table 3 summarizes participants’ self-reported usage of the emotion regulation (ER) items for regulating their own emotions (intrinsic emotion regulation). Table 4 summarizes participants’ self-reported usage of the ER items for regulating others’ emotions (extrinsic emotion regulation). Both tables only include data from participants who answered at least 50% of the emotion regulation questions. ‘Neutral’ was the most commonly selected response option for the majority of items. ‘Agree’ and ‘neutral’ were the response options chosen for all of the bimodal items (one intrinsic item and two extrinsic items were bimodal). Overall, the responses were slightly skewed toward ‘agree’, indicating use of the strategy, with the exception of intrinsic uses of situation modification and attentional deployment, which were skewed toward disagree.

Table 3.

Judges’ reported use of intrinsic emotion regulation strategies.

  M S E Modea SD Skew Responses
Cognitive pre-appraisal 3.83 0.10 4 – Agree 0.93 –0.65 93
Cognitive reappraisal 3.56 0.10 3 – Neutral 1.01 –0.13 93
Situation selectiona 3.51 0.12 3 – Neutral
4 – Agree		 1.19 –0.54 94
Suppression 3.46 0.11 4 – Agree 1.11 –0.28 99
Cognitive acceptance 3.33 0.12 4 – Agree 1.18 –0.35 94
Attentional deployment 2.88 0.11 3 – Neutral 1.09 0.44 94
Situation modification 2.64 0.12 3 – Neutral 1.18 0.17 101
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aWhere there are two modes, both are indicated.

Table 4.

Judges’ reported use of extrinsic emotion regulation strategies.

  M S E Modea SD Skew Responses
Situation selection 3.61 0.10 3 – Neutral 0.98 –0.14 97
Cognitive reappraisal 3.48 0.11 3 – Neutral 0.98 –0.23 83
Cognitive pre-appraisala 3.38 0.11 3 – Neutral
4 – Agree		 1.08 –0.33 92
Suppression 3.33 0.11 4 – Agree 1.06 –0.14 93
Attentional deployment 3.13 0.11 3 – Neutral 1.04 –0.20 94
Cognitive acceptance 3.10 0.11 3 – Neutral 1.03 –0.08 88
Situation modificationa 3.07 0.12 3 – Neutral
4 – Agree		 1.17 –0.15 94
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aWhere there are two modes, both are indicated.

Overall ratings

The highest means (>3.5) indicating usage of intrinsic ER strategies were for cognitive pre-appraisal (3.83), cognitive reappraisal (3.56) and situation selection (3.51). The lowest means (<3.0) for intrinsic ER strategies were for situation modification (2.64) and attention deployment (2.88). For extrinsic ER strategies, situation selection (3.61) was the most highly endorsed strategy. None of the extrinsic strategies had a mean below 3.0, indicating that the judges were largely neutral about these options.

Extrinsic versus intrinsic strategies

Paired t tests were conducted to examine whether judges differed in their use of the same emotion regulation strategy depending on whether it was directed toward others or directed at themselves. Of the seven emotion regulation strategies, two were significantly different using a Bonferroni correction. Endorsing cognitive pre-appraisal was significantly higher for self/intrinsic use than for others/extrinsic (M = 3.85 vs. M = 3.41, respectively), t(84) = 3.59, p = .001, whereas situation modification was higher for use with others/extrinsic than for self/intrinsic regulation (M = 3.60 vs. M = 3.53, respectively), t(90) = −2.99, p = .004.

Group comparisons

Compared to males, female judges were slightly more likely to report using intrinsic (M = 22.21 vs. M = 24.57, respectively), t(52) = −2.00, p = .051, and extrinsic ER strategies (M = 21.97 vs. M = 24.11, respectively), t(51) = −2.02, p = .049. There were no differences in emotion regulation strategy use by length of time as a judge.

The role of emotions in court

In addition to questions about emotion regulation strategies, we also asked judges to respond to three additional questions (see Table 2) regarding their attitudes toward the role of emotions in court. Interestingly, relatively few judges in our sample strongly agreed that ‘Holding back all emotion in the courtroom is essential for justice’. The majority of judges in this sample (n = 45; see Table 2) disagreed, and only 25.8% agreed or strongly agreed with that statement. We asked judges whether they experience more emotions than other judges at work, and while the modal response was neutral (30%), a majority (43%) chose either ‘disagree’ or ‘strongly disagree’. Finally, just over half of judges (51.6%) strongly agreed that expressing emotions in court can be helpful.

Relationships among questions

We examined the relationship among the three emotions in court questions in Table 2 and found that they were not related to each other. However, two of these questions were associated with the endorsement of some of the ER strategies. The question ‘compared to other judges, I tend to experience more emotions (positive and negative) at work’ was associated with lower endorsement of intrinsic emotional suppression (Spearman’s rho correlations ρ = −.350, p < .001). Judges’ agreement with the question ‘holding back all emotion in the courtroom is essential for justice’ was positively related to (a) their use of attentional deployment to control their emotions (ρ = .224, p < .05), (b) their reported usage of situation selection to manage others’ emotions (avoiding situations when they think others will get upset), ρ = .235, p < .05, (c) their use of cognitive reappraisal to manage another person’s emotions during a stressful interaction, ρ = .229, p < .01 and (d) endorsing the use of cognitive acceptance to help control others’ emotions, ρ = .292, p < .01.

Performance as scales

We inspected how well the ER items held together as a scale assessing emotion regulation strategies in a court setting and found that the items had satisfactory internal consistency. Coefficient omega for all 14 questions was .77. For the ER-self items it was .63, and for ER-other items it was .70. There was no significant difference in the amount to which judges reported using the seven emotion regulation strategies referring to the self, (M = 23.94) versus the seven referring to regulating others’ emotions (M = 23.66), t(46) = 0.518, p > .05.

Factor analysis

Using an exploratory factor analysis (EFA; using the psych package in R; Revelle, 2019), we examined the number of latent variables that best describe the relationships among the 14 observed items. For this EFA, we only considered participants who responded to more than 50% of the question items, ranging from 81 to 100 participants per question. We applied an oblique rotation, which is the default EFA rotation, and a Schmid–Leiman transformation to find the factor loadings.

Three factors had eigenvalues over 1.00, which fit the structure of the observed data well: χ2(52) = 144.15, p < .001; root mean square error of approximation, RMSEA = 0.14 (90% confidence interval, CI [0.11, 0.16]); standardized root mean square residual, SRMR = 0.18. It appears one factor is about emotional suppression, the second factor is about situation selection/modification, and the third factor is about cognitive reframing. Both the self and the alter questions generally loaded together on the three factors. In addition, there was one cross loading (standardized factor loading at or above .30) between the two factors that were composed of items intended to assess situation modification and cognitive reframing strategies for the self.

Relationships among questions

We used a Spearman’s rho correlation to examine the relationship among the emotion regulation strategies. Overall, the seven intrinsic self-emotion regulation strategies were correlated with the use of ER extrinsic strategies to modulate another’s emotions (Spearman’s rho correlation ρ = .642, p < .001).

These results show that overall the two scales perform well in this context. Examining the relationships among the questions reveals that the use of strategies in both scales are related but do not completely overlap. Therefore depending on the research question, one could use either scale or both.

Qualitative results

We invited judges to respond to open-ended questions about how emotions affect their work, and what solutions they would suggest for judges to regulate emotions. Overall, we received 38 legible responses to these questions. Several judges expressed a positive (n = 4) or ambivalent (n = 16) view of the role of emotions, while others (n = 14) took a strictly negative view of how emotions affect their work. Several judges’ responses were too vague to code (e.g. one judge simply responded ‘Little’). The judges’ varied responses to the question about how emotions affect their work suggest that participants interpreted the question in a number of ways. The four main themes that emerged in how the judges responded to these questions were (a) how their own emotions affect their own well-being, (b) how their own emotions affect their ability to remain impartial, (c) how their own emotions affect their productivity, and (d) how their own and others’ emotions affect proceedings (see Table 5).

Table 5.

Themes identified and judges’ examples for how emotions affect work.

Own emotions affect judges’ own well-being Own emotions affect judges’ ability to remain impartial Own emotions affect judges’ productivity Emotions affect courtroom proceedings

  • It is exhausting to control emotions

  • My mood might affect my rulings, courtroom demeanor

  • Typically it impedes productivity, at least negative emotions

  • Emotion expressed by litigants makes it difficult to judge credibility

  • Could cause burnout/fatigue

  • Can be wearing

  • Affects mood, which affects proceedings

  • Could affect ability to look at evidence dispassionately

  • If a negative emotion, affect productivity; if positive, better workflow

  • I spend a lot of time moderating or controlling the emotion of the parties

  • Good days make you feel good

  • It can cloud judgement

  • Positive emotions lead to more productivity

  • During a hearing will get irritated and hard to resist impulse to show anger, or irritation. . . . Hard not to demonstrate boredom

  • It impacts your ability to filter the stress/ exhaustion

  • Affects ability to make judgments

  • Sometimes my anger makes me work harder, as I have to use a lot of energy to address the source of my anger in a constructive way

  • Difficulty writing

  • Can make one work harder

  • Undermines

  • self-esteem

  • Essential to allow for it. Cannot make humane decisions in a sterile emotional vacuum

  • Less tolerance for parties

  • Can be distracting but also part of the human experience, so it makes the work real

  • Emotions can interfere with the smooth running of the hearing by becoming another factor in the case
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Note: Two questions were asked related to emotion regulation at work: (a) ‘How does emotion affect your work?’ and (b) ‘What ‘solutions’ or interventions would YOU recommend?’.

As reflected in the quantitative data, the majority of these judges presented descriptions of both the desirable and undesirable effects of emotions in their work. For example, several judges mentioned that emotion can cloud judgments about the case or affect their ability to write a decision. Others suggested that emotions might be a necessary component of decision-making by helping to create empathy and understanding. Some judges even suggested that emotions can serve as an additional source of information about the case, though the comments were non-specific with regard to whose emotions, and which emotions, should be considered. Comments also addressed how emotions might affect the legal proceedings, with judges presenting both positive and negative viewpoints. One participant noted issues with their own emotions, such as accidentally displaying a negative response to counsel, or losing their temper. Another participant suggested that ‘frequently let[ting] them [the parties] vent their emotions is helpful’. Based on the comments provided, it seems that not all judges view emotion as a negative aspect of their work, even when the affective state might typically be viewed as a negative emotion, such as anger, frustration or sadness.

Do judges’ descriptions match ER strategies?

Our third research question for this project was, ‘Do judges’ qualitative descriptions of their emotion regulation strategies match the typology presented by Maroney and Gross (2014)?’ Largely, we found that many of the strategies judges described matched a subset of the strategies described by Maroney and Gross (2014). Judges primarily described strategies of suppression and situation modification.

Emotion regulation – self

The strategy with the highest reported use by the judges in this study for intrinsic emotion regulation at work was cognitive pre-appraisal, followed by suppression. However, many of the strategies mentioned by the judges in response to the open-ended questions could be interpreted as situation modification strategies. For example, judges mentioned ‘keeping hearings formal’, ‘controlling hearing time’ and ‘taking breaks’ or ‘recess’. We interpreted these as situation modification, rather than situation selection, because judges still need to engage with the situations, but described controlling aspects of the case processing. Judges can limit the amount of time they allow for hearings, and the number and length of recesses they allow during a hearing, which might be especially beneficial if the case is likely to elicit strong negative emotions.

In addition to interpersonal and situational adjustments, participants also suggested that modifications to the physical environment could help with managing emotions. Two judges in particular mentioned artwork as a way to elicit desired emotions. As one judge suggested:

I absolutely need a positive emotional environment. I also need beauty in my environment – painted walls, pictures, decorations.

Considerations about artwork in the environment could be interpreted, in the context of emotion regulation, either as a mechanism for attentional deployment or as a situation modification that could promote a positive emotional state. Additional data collected during this survey regarding environmental stressors (not reported in this analysis) suggest that the physical environment serves as a proxy for the prestige and power of the court. It seems likely that the primary emotion regulation function intended by judges who recommended artwork would be to engender a positive emotional experience from the start.

Judges also mentioned suppression throughout their open-ended comments. For example, several judges talked about ‘controlling’ their emotions, or keeping them ‘in check’. One judge explained, ‘I try to keep my emotions removed in large part from the analytical parts of my job’. Another judge suggested that judges should ‘Keep all personal problems/feelings outside before enter[ing the] court room’.

Several participants described efforts to reappraise the experience of emotions in their work from something negative to something positive, though it was not always clear whether this was intended as an example of cognitive pre-appraisal in preparation for a potentially emotional situation or an example of reappraisal during an emotional event. Some judges even mentioned that emotion could be helpful in their job. For example, one judge suggested that ‘passion supports work’, and another suggested that emotion in the courtroom could be used as a way to foster empathy for the parties. Judges who choose to reframe their experience of negative emotions in ways that guide their judgement, motivate their search for justice or help them empathize with the parties before them might be less likely to experience distress often associated with the experience of negative emotions.

Emotion regulation – other

In addition to regulating their own emotions, some judges also mentioned the need to regulate the emotions of the parties in their courtrooms. When parties in a contentious legal dispute become highly emotive, this can disrupt proceedings. However, the emotions displayed by the parties can also serve as added information for the judge to assist in their decision-making. One judge suggested that ‘emotions can inform ability of litigant to establish case’, and that ‘emotion expressed by litigants makes it difficult to judge credibility’. Though the judges in this study did not necessarily provide specific strategies for regulating others’ emotions, some of the situation modifications that judges recommended (such as taking frequent breaks) would also have the potential to benefit other parties in the court experiencing strong emotions.

In addition to the strategies described above, a very large proportion of the judges responding to the open-ended questions suggested that judges should seek or be provided various forms of social support. Maroney and Gross (2014) discuss this in the context of emotional disclosure, which is a response-oriented strategy. While it was not included in our quantitative measures, this was by far the most popular recommendation in the qualitative data. Judges mentioned talking to colleagues and seeking outside support from friends and family (without violating confidentiality rules). Some even suggested that management could take a more active role in fostering workplace social support through ‘efforts to gather people in the same room for a fun activity’, ‘more frequent staff meetings’ and ‘mentorship’.

Additional ER strategies

Our fourth research question for this project was, ‘Are there strategies not mentioned by Maroney and Gross that judges use to manage their emotions?’ The judges in this study mentioned some strategies that were not explicitly described by Maroney and Gross (2014), but which have gained widespread popularity in recent years and are reflected in the judicial wellness literature (Lebovits, 2019). Judges specifically mentioned ‘exercise’, ‘sleep’, ‘self-awareness’ and practicing ‘self-care’. For example, when asked about solutions they would recommend in response to how emotions affect their work, one judge specifically listed a number of self-care practices: ‘eat right, exercise, leave on time – work/life balance’. Concern for physical and mental health and practicing mindfulness could be important tools for judges in managing the stress of their job, but they can also be important in identifying and responding appropriately to a range of emotions that arise in the course of their work.

Discussion

The judges in this study work as administrative law judges. The cases that they handle are generally not as high profile as major civil litigation or criminal cases, but administrative cases often contain emotional content, and parties might experience strong emotions related to their cases. Administrative proceedings can affect litigants’ income, employment, government benefits, access to water, enjoyment of natural resources, feelings of safety and security, or immigration status and deportation. Litigants in administrative cases might not be entitled to an attorney, and ALJs likely deal with far more self-represented litigants than judges who preside over criminal cases. Self-represented litigants, unlike attorneys and judges, are not accultured to the emotion norms of the court context, and may be more likely to express their emotions, or allow their emotions to influence how they present their case, in ways that are not acceptable for the context (Toy-Cronin, 2019). Thus, judges who work with self-represented litigants might actually expend significant effort on regulating parties’ behavioral expression of emotion, even when the content of a case is relatively unemotional. Judging is not a one-size profession, and the judges’ response patterns in this study highlight the need to pay close attention to the context in which judges work when assessing their access to, and use of, emotional regulation strategies.

Despite the longstanding belief that emotion threatens impartiality and that the ideal of a dispassionate judge does not allow for emotions in judicial work, the results of this study show that ALJs see both positive and negative aspects to the role that emotion plays in their work. The judges who participated in this study generally avoided reporting strong positions toward specific emotion regulation strategies (very few judges indicated that they either agreed or disagreed ‘strongly’ with any of the specific strategies presented), and they expressed a cautiousness about the disruptive influences emotions can have. Still, many of the judges in this sample do not seem to subscribe completely to the ideal of the dispassionate judge. In fact, the majority of judges (52%) strongly agreed that ‘It can be helpful to express emotions in the courtroom’, while only 31% of the judges in this sample either disagreed or strongly disagreed with that statement. Additionally, the majority of judges (63%) disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement ‘Holding back all emotion in the courtroom is essential for justice’. Higher agreement with that statement was most associated with extrinsic emotion regulation strategies – reported usage of strategies to regulate others’ emotions rather than one’s own.

While some judges did point out that emotions can interfere with judgment and affect their rulings, many participants expressed the positive value that emotions can inject into their work. For example, judges suggested that emotions can provide additional information about the parties and the cases, and can assist the judge with empathy, and that ‘positive emotions help with motivation’. One participant wrote that judges ‘cannot make humane decisions in a sterile emotional vacuum’. When we compared judges’ use of emotion regulation strategies directed toward themselves versus use of strategies to regulate others’ emotions, we found few differences. This seems to indicate that, overall, judges are motivated similarly to regulate both their own emotions and those of others in the course of their work.

Judges are tasked with rendering important decisions that affect the lives of the parties in their cases, and which potentially reach even further to affect future cases, the application of laws and legal reform. In the course of their job, judges are exposed to highly emotional topics and people. Managing emotions, especially negative emotions like anger, is a cognitively demanding task (Keng et al., 2017). However, judges might not have equal access to all of the identified strategies for regulating their own and others’ emotions. For example, a judge cannot choose to divert their attention away from emotional proceedings, or bar evidence simply because it might trigger negative emotions. For these reasons, Maroney and Gross (2014) mention that some strategies, like situation selection, might be limited in their availability for judges to use and for which we found some support in this study. However, in our quantitative results, we found support for the use of situation selection and, in the qualitative responses, for situation modification. Although judges might not be able to recuse themselves from a case, and therefore select a different situation altogether, our results reveal other tactics within these strategies that judges can use, such as selecting when and for how long to interact with co-workers and parties. As examples of how they use situation modification to manage emotions in the courtroom, judges offered tactics such as taking breaks and controlling hearing time. It may be that administrative judges have more flexibility to use situation selection and situation modification strategies than other types of judges who, for example, are less able to choose assignments. While the judges in this study reported using each of the strategies presented in the survey items to varying degrees, their open-ended comments demonstrated a narrower focus on a few specific strategies. It is not surprising, given the pervasiveness of the ideal of a dispassionate judge, that the most common strategy described by the judges in this study was emotional suppression.

The judicial ideal of dispassion as a component of impartiality can be difficult to maintain when judges are presented with highly emotional cases, evidence and defendants (Wistrich et al., 2015). Some emotion regulation strategies can place a strain on cognitive resources and potentially lead to poorer decision-making, higher stress, negative health outcomes and job burnout. For example, a heavy reliance on suppression among judges might be cause for concern because it is not as successful in reducing negative emotional experience as are other strategies (Gross, 1998), and because previous research has associated emotion suppression with a host of negative outcomes, such as taxing cognitive resources, which hinders memory recall (Richards & Gross, 2000). This study showed that suppression is a commonly used strategy in this sample of judges, but we also found that some judges employ other strategies as well. Overall, the use of these strategies for emotion regulation reported by the judges in this study support the typology presented by Maroney and Gross (2014).

Future directions

For judges who believe that it is important to remain completely dispassionate in the course of their work, daily experience of strong emotions could lead to feelings of dissonance (a disconnect between beliefs and experiences, which causes some distress; Festinger, 1962). Different emotion regulation strategies typically offer different results with regard to stress reduction and health outcomes. Depending on the types of cases a judge typically hears, unpleasant emotions might be unavoidable. In this study, we identified what emotion regulation strategies judges report using. However, we did not examine the impact of these strategies. Future studies should examine whether judges who use different emotion regulation strategies experience differences in their physical and psychological well-being, and whether the use of different strategies affects judicial decision-making. These findings could have implications for understanding judges’ burnout. Relatedly, an examination of the relative effectiveness of various emotion regulation strategies for accomplishing judges’ motives or goals in their work could be valuable and used to teach judges about the efficacy of different strategies.

Future studies could explore other components of emotion regulation such as judges’ ability to use more automatic strategies (implicit emotion regulation) versus strategies that are more effortful to employ (explicit emotion regulation; Gyurak et al., 2011) or examine the interpersonal aspects of emotion regulation, which emphasize the influence of interactions with others and shared goals (such as having a useful hearing) on emotional regulation (Diamond & Aspinwall, 2003). In this study we examined the fit of Maroney and Gross’s (2014) emotion regulation typology to these judges’ reports of emotion regulation. Future studies could compare their typology against other emotion regulation typologies (e.g. Koole, 2009) to identify the relative fit of different approaches. In addition, more conceptual work is needed defining and delineating the components of judicial temperament and emotion research in judicial work more generally (see Maroney, 2019, 2020). We also investigated the psychometric properties of the quantitative scales in this study and found support for their use. Future studies should expand on these results and continue to evaluate the measurement properties of these scales.

Limitations

The individual survey items in this study had varying levels of missing data. This was most likely attributable to the method of data collection, because judges were asked to respond to questions during an educational presentation, which might have been distracting. Additionally, the response time was limited during these training sessions so that data collection did not interfere with the learning objectives for the seminar, and this could have also resulted in some participants skipping questions. The clicker remotes presented additional challenges to data collection, as we had to limit all items to five response options. This change might also have artificially restricted variation in responses. The raw scores for some items might not be comparable to the existing literature. Additionally, we did not probe for judges’ interpretations of the three survey questions developed for this study to capture attitudes related to judicial dispassion and the experience of emotion in the course of their work. Therefore, we do not know whether meanings of terms varied among judges. For example, our measure of suppression was general, and judges may have been thinking of suppressing their behaviors or their experience of emotions, or both, in their responses but we did not measure them separately.

The qualitative responses were collected on paper, separately from the quantitative survey items. There is no way to know whether the judges followed the presenter’s instructions regarding when they should answer the open-ended questions. The identification of themes from the limited number of qualitative responses should be considered exploratory in nature. While these themes may inform future research on judicial emotion regulation, we caution against generalizing these results. Further, using the two different technologies, we were unable to match the qualitative and quantitative data, and so it was not possible in this study to match or cross-tabulate the two forms of data. However, this methodology allows for a feasible way to collect data when judges are available in one setting to better understand their experiences. In our experience, judges tend to be highly concerned with confidentiality when participating in research, and this method also allowed judges to comment without concern that their comments could later be tied to their identity.

The judges in this study work within a relatively small geographic area, and the diversity of the sample with regard to judge type was also limited. Judges who practice other areas of law, or who work in different geographic areas, might not be well represented by the results described here. This seminar was a rare opportunity to study such a large group of judges at one time, despite the limitations. However, these findings should not be generalized to all judges, but should instead serve as an application and test of theory, and a basis for further research.

Conclusion

This study offered a glimpse into ALJs’ views on emotions in their work, and their preferred strategies for regulating their own and others’ emotions. Our findings provide empirical support for the application of the Maroney and Gross (2014) emotion regulation typology for judges and for the use of the measures that we developed in this study. The results of this study show that ALJs are open to the role of emotion in the courtroom and other aspects of their work, and they already employ a number of emotion regulation strategies that correspond to strategies in the theoretical literature. These judges use these strategies to influence both their own and others’ emotions, yet strive to maintain neutrality. For both self and other, the emotion regulation strategies that judges in this study were most likely to report using were situation selection, cognitive pre-appraisal and cognitive reappraisal. However, a number of judges also reported their use of emotion suppression, which has been linked to negative health outcomes.

Providing training to judges to assist them in their emotional regulation efforts can build upon this foundation, and ultimately improve both the legal setting and judges’ professional experiences in and out of the courtroom. Training on the use of antecedent emotion regulation strategies might be especially useful as judges mentioned trying to suppress their emotions and wanting support to help deal with emotional stressors already experienced. Judges are interested in obtaining training in this area (Elek et al., 2017), but understanding how judges balance highly emotional work with their day-to-day emotions is an important step in reducing the potential negative effects of emotion on judicial decision-making and public perception of judicial decisions.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank The National Judicial College for technical support with this research.

Ethical standards

Declaration of conflicts of interest

Katie M. Snider has declared no conflicts of interest

Paul G. Devereux has declared no conflicts of interest

Monica K. Miller has declared no conflicts of interest

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the University of Nevada, Reno Institutional Review Board (IRB), and ethical standards comparable to the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments, comprising the ethical principles described in the Belmont Report, and federal requirements under the U.S. Revised Common Rule (U.S. 45 CFR part 46).

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study

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