Formation of procedural beliefs about legal arenas: Do people generalize from loosely related past legal experiences?

Abstract

Abstract Few studies have addressed how people develop beliefs about legal authorities' neutrality and fairness. Using a cross-sectional survey of taxpayers (N = 147), this study examines the sources and processes underlying the formation of these beliefs. Controlling for significant contributions of media stories about audits and past audit experiences, past loosely related negative legal events (traffic court) also shape perceptions that tax auditors are more biased and unfair. Information about police officers exchanged in conversations also creates perceptions that tax auditors are more biased. These generalization effects occur only when people do not have prior direct experience with tax auditors. For taxpayers with prior audit experience, positive experiences are related to more positive perceptions of auditors and media stories about tax audits produce more negative perceptions. The findings suggest that positive and negative past experiences shape beliefs only when they disconfirm prior perceptio...