Levels of Inference in Dispositional Judgment

Abstract

This article distinguishes between two levels of inference regarding person causes of behavior—one leading from behavior to proximal, behavior-specific causes and the other leading to more distal, general causes. The former inference concerns behavior-correspondent tendencies, namely, whether the target person did what she or he truly felt, believed, or wished. The latter inference goes beyond behavior-specific tendencies to causally prior and more general dispositions—to emotional traits rather than to immediate emotions, to general needs rather than to specific wishes, and so forth. The model specifies the informational cues that are relevant to each level of causality and the inferential operations that combine these cues into judgment.