| Abstract: | This study investigates support for changes to the U.S. Supreme Court using prospect theory. Risk domain is alternatively conceptualized as the perception of retrospective benefits and future risks posed by Supreme Court decision-making. Two experiments explore how citizens think about gains and losses from Court outputs. Findings indicate that retrospective benefits are influenced by the relevant time frame respondents are asked to consider, political partisanship, and the interaction between them; prospective risks are affected by question wording, partisanship, and an interaction between respondents' partisanship and the relevant time frame. Using retrospective benefits as a proxy for determining if someone is in the domain of gains or losses does not yield consistent results regarding support for change to the Supreme Court. Conceptualizing risk domain in terms of the expectation of future gains and losses, however, does yield significant effects consistent with prospect theory. |
