Judicial stress: the roles of gender and social support

Abstract

Because judges experience a myriad of occupational stressors, they are at risk of experiencing secondary trauma, burnout, negative mental/physical health, poor job performance and low job satisfaction. These experiences might not be uniform, however, as gender and social support might mitigate such stress-related outcomes. Judges from two states in the United States completed a variety of stress and subjective performance measures. Social support was related to less perceived stress, less burnout, and more job satisfaction, but only for males. This suggests that males and females might receive qualitatively different types of social support. Different types of social support could differ in their ability to buffer judges from these stress-related outcomes. Further, among judges with high social support, females scored higher than males on subjective job performance; the opposite pattern occurred for judges with low social support. Thus, a lack of social support appears to have a negative effect on performance self-appraisals but only for females. Results have implications for the psychological study of stress and for programs designed to reduce judges' stress.

An Assessment of Judges’ Self‐Reported Experiences of Secondary Traumatic Stress

“…Admittedly, overall stress level was researchers’ subjective coding based on each comment, but there was a high level of consistency across coders for these ratings (86%) and many judges—approximately 73%—showed symptoms of at least one stress type. This comports with previous findings (Flores et al., 2008‐9; Jaffe et al., ; Miller, Reichert, et al., ) and suggests that this substantial minority of judges who experience STS is worthy of attention and is an important group to study.…”

“…The present study analyzed qualitative secondary data that allowed us to examine how judges personally perceive and experience secondary stress and its correlates. We expanded on past literature (Flores et al., 2008‐9; Lustig et al., ; Miller, Edwards, et al., ; Miller, Reichert, et al., ; Resnick et al., ) by assessing judges’ secondary stress from a simple yes or no question and any elaboration they saw fit. Although some codes pertained to only a limited number of comments, the data reflect a substantial presence of STS and related stress theories and foundations in judges in that aspects of these stress theories were consistently mentioned despite being unprompted.…”

“…Research supports this notion that judges experience secondary traumatic stress (Chamberlain & Miller, ; Miller, Reichert, et al., ). This is not uniform, though, as previous research has found general jurisdiction judges experience significantly less trauma than other judges, including family court judges (Miller, Reichert, et al., ). Additionally, demographic factors, such as gender, have been related to differences in reported levels of secondary stress (Edwards, Snider, Miller, & Devereux, 2019).…”

“…Judges often experience declines in job performance from burnout (e.g., Eells & Showalter, ; Miller, Reichert, et al., ), though this can vary by factors such as gender, level of social support, years on the bench, and type of judge. For instance, general jurisdiction judges experienced higher subjective job performance than other types of judges, such as family court judges.…”

“…Most studies examining judicial stress (e.g., Lustig et al., ; Miller, Edwards, Reichert, & Bornstein, ; Miller, Reichert, Bornstein, & Shulman, ), have used pre‐developed survey‐type measures developed for a broad population (for interview‐type methods, see Chamberlain & Miller, ; Miller, Flores, & Pitcher, ). The current study used a new methodology: asking judges a simple yes or no question and allowing them to elaborate as they see fit.…”