Abstract
The article argues about the influence of the first opinion in a panel of judges, considering the specificities of the collegiality model adopted by the Brazilian civil procedure law. Based on the literature on collective decision-making in Brazil and the Psychology contribution on heuristics and cognitive biases, a simulation experiment of a case of civil liability for medical error was conducted by asking participants to make monetary damage awards as if they were members of a judicial panel, based on previously recommended amount from the opinion of the Rapporteur. The results consist of preliminary evidence of anchoring as a cognitive bias which is possibly encouraged by the current legal system in this kind of decision-making process. The need of more empirical research on this subject, by controlled experiments or studies of real contexts, and of a deeper discussion about the disfunctions and paths of collegiality in Brazilian courts is raised, considering hypothesis of intensification and mitigation of this phenomenon in the civil justice context.
Legal decision-making; collegiality; heuristics; cognitive biases; anchoring
Thumbnail
Fonte: Elaboração própria.