Judges should not be influenced by legally irrelevant circumstances in their legal decision making and judges generally believe that they manage legally irrelevant circumstances well. The purpose of this experimental study was to investigate whether this self-image is correct. Swedish judges (N = 256) read a vignette depicting a case of libel, where a female student had claimed on her blog that she had been sexually harassed by a named male professor. The professor had sued the student for libel and the student retracted her claim during the hearing. Half of the judges received irrelevant information - that the professor himself had been convicted of libel a year earlier, while the other half did not receive this information. For the outcome variable, the judges were asked to state how much compensation the student should pay the professor. Those judges who received information about the professor himself having been convicted of libel stated that he should be given significantly less compensation than those who did not receive the irrelevant information. The results show that the judges’ decision was affected by legally irrelevant circumstances. Implications for research and practice are discussed

中文翻译：

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法官是否受到与法律无关的情况的影响？

法官在作出法律决定时不应受到与法律无关的情况的影响，法官通常认为他们在法律上不相关的情况处理得很好。这项实验研究的目的是调查这种自我形象是否正确。瑞典法官（N = 256）阅读了一段描述诽谤案的小插图，其中一名女学生在她的博客上声称自己遭到一位名叫男教授的性骚扰。教授已起诉该学生诽谤罪，该学生在听证会上撤回了她的要求。一半的法官收到了不相关的信息-教授本人一年前曾被判犯有诽谤罪，而另一半则没有收到此信息。对于结果变量，要求法官说明学生应支付给教授多少补偿。那些收到有关教授本人因诽谤而被定罪的信息的法官说，与没有收到无关信息的法官相比，应给他的赔偿要少得多。结果表明，法官的决定受到与法律无关的情况的影响。讨论了对研究和实践的启示