Missing Observations in Paired Comparisons: Assessing the Impact of Argumentative Threat in Written Opinions at the Supreme Court

• Activity Number: 39
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Sunday, August 4, 2013 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
• Sponsor: Social Statistics Section
• Author(s): William Christensen*+ and Lance Long
• Companies: Brigham Young University and Stetson University College of Law
• Keywords: paired comparisons ; missing data ; argumentative threat ; Supreme Court ; intensifiers ; writing style

Abstract

The theory of argumentative threat posits that when a writer suspects or knows that they are on the losing end of an argument, he or she will write in a more emotional style that is characterized in part by an increased use of intensifying adverbs such as "clearly," "obviously," "definitely," etc. Opinions written by Supreme Court justices (or other panels of judges) provide a particularly insightful view of argumentative threat because justices know before they write their opinions whether they are writing for the "winners" (the majority opinion) or the "losers" (the dissenting opinion). However, there are many cases in which dissenting opinions are not observed due to unanimity.

When missing observations are present in a paired comparison study, the researcher often chooses between a paired t-test (omitting observations that are not complete) or a two-sample t-test (ignoring the correlation that exists between the two observed variables). We discuss options for analyzing paired data in the presence of missing observations and we apply the recommended approach to a comparison of majority and dissenting opinions at the Supreme Court during 2006-2009.