Question

Social Psychology, Psy 318 Generate an example of a time when you would draw a dispositional inference from someone’s behavior (do not use the example of lateness I used in class). Use either (Kelley’s) Covariation Theory or (Jones and Davis’s) Correspondent Inference Theory (not both) to explain why you would draw a dispositional inference about another person’s behavior. Make sure to describe the behavior /situation with sufficient detail, say which theory you are using, and apply all 3 aspects of the relevant theory to this behavior / situation. Additional tips: -Do not use ‘being late / lateness’ as an example.

Answer 1

Dispositional inference deals with attribution theeory of social psychology. It is an internal attribution in which it explains cause of behaviour to some internal characteristics rather than outside factors. Eg. We attribute the behaviour of a person to their motives, personality etc.

Kelleys Covariation Theory explains about attribution theory. It is logical model for judging whether a particular action should be attributed to some characteristic/ internal of the person and environmental/external factors. There are 3 types of causal information which influence our judgements.

consensus	Distinctiveness	consistency
It is the extent to which other people behave in the same way in a similar situation	It is the extent to which the person behaves in the same way in the similar situations	It is the extent to which the person behaves like this everytime the situation occurs
Eg- Mathew is laughing at a comedian. Laughter is Mathews behaviour. Consensus high if all the audience laugh at the comedian. Consensus low if only Mathew laughs at comedian.	Distinctiveness high if Mathew only laughs at this comedian Distinctiveness low if Mathew barely laughs at this comedian	Consistency high if Mathew only laughs at this comedian Consistency low if Mathew laughs at everything
Samson smokes a cigarette when he goes out for a meal with his friend.If his friend smokes, his behavior is high in consensus. If only Samson smokes, it is low.	If Samson only smokes when he is out with friends, his behavior is high in distinctiveness. If he smokes at any time or place, distinctiveness is low.	If Samson only smokes when he is out with friends, consistency is high. If he only smokes on one special occasion, consistency is low.

High factors are caused by the situational factors. Low factors are caused by personal factor.