Article language: English.
Abstract
This Article enhances legal reasoning through an interdisciplinary approach rooted in cognitive psychology, behavioral neuroscience, doctrinal analysis and insights from the self-help genre. Building on Sean Webb’s Equation of Emotion (EoE), a work that combines self-help accessibility with rigorous cognitive-emotional modeling, it applies the EoE’s preference-perception dynamic to judicial decision-making. The resulting Jurisprudential Alignment Model (JAM) explains how a judge’s Jurisprudential Preferences and/or Expectations (JPEs) interact with Interpretive or Factual Legal Perceptions (IFLPs) to shape decision outputs (DOs). Twelve JPE indicators, ranging from interpretive methodology and rhetorical cues to cognitive dissonance, are defined and applied to the full body of opinions authored by the current Indiana Tax Court judge between December 2023 and August 2025, producing a jurisprudential self-map. This self-map shows how advocates can extend the traditional IRAC method by tailoring arguments to a decision-maker’s interpretive tendencies, thereby reducing dissonance and increasing persuasive impact. Beyond its use for advocates, the Article introduces a new doctrinal framework for courts themselves: the Judicial Coherence Test (JCT). The JCT transforms JAM’s underlying Judicial Coherence Equation (JCE) into a three-step test that requires judges to (1) identify their jurisprudential preferences, (2) clearly state their interpretive or factual perceptions and (3) reconcile the two transparently when producing a decision. Similar to existing judicial multi-factor balancing tests, the JCT formalizes what is often an implicit process, making reasoning structures explicit and reviewable. When applied to the Indiana Tax Court’s statutory interpretation in one of its recent cases, the JCT demonstrates how judicial meta-awareness can be converted into a principled, repeatable and legally cognizable method that refines doctrine, reduces hidden dissonance and enhances the legitimacy of judicial outcomes.