Anti-abortion activists have frequently claimed that restricting abortion access can shape public opinion and promote “cultural change” (e.g., Oberman, 2018). This concept is connected to the debate on whether institutional decisions influence people’s opinions. The theory of the expressive power of the law posits that laws signal societal values, potentially changing beliefs and behaviors (Sunstein, 1996). For laws to be expressive, they must be publicized, understood, and perceived as legitimate (McAdams, 2015). Judicial decisions can similarly shape personal attitudes (Dahl, 1957). While there is substantial research on rights-expanding rulings, less is known about rights-restricting decisions that oppose prevailing public opinion.

To explore this, I conducted a survey experiment with 1,536 US adults representative of the US population on key demographics. Participants were asked about perceived public opinion and personal attitudes on abortion rights. The treated group read an excerpt about the Dobbs decision (i.e., the Supreme Court decision removing abortion from the US Constitution) before responding. Data on demographics, ideology, and trust in the Supreme Court were also collected (following Tankard & Paluck, 2017).

Results showed no significant effect of being primed with information about Dobbs on perceived public opinion or personal attitudes, challenging claims of anti-abortion expressive power but also quasi-experimental evidence pointing towards backlash reactions (Clark et al., 2023). The perceived representativeness of the Supreme Court moderated the treatment effect, while previous knowledge of the decision did not.

This study contributes to the understanding of the impact of institutional decisions on public opinion by providing experimental evidence.