How did behavioralist political scientists study judges and members of Congress differently from traditionalists?

Traditionalist and behavioralist scholars approached the study of judges and members of Congress from fundamentally different methodological perspectives.

Traditionalists, who dominated the field through the 1950s, focused on the formal rules, structures, and legal foundations of institutions like the courts and the legislative branch. Their work was primarily descriptive and qualitative, often emphasizing how these institutions ought to function rather than empirically analyzing their day-to-day operations.1

In contrast, behavioralists sought to make political science more scientific by shifting the focus away from institutional structures and toward the actions of individual political actors. Instead of examining the role of Congress or the courts within the broader system of government, behavioralists utilized quantitative methods to study the specific decisions made by individual judges or the choices of individual legislators. By applying social science methodologies—often drawing from psychology and economics—they aimed to develop broad, empirically validated theories of political behavior, moving the discipline away from its traditional roots in history, law, and philosophy.12