OUR DISPOSITION + THE SITUATION USUALLY INFLUENCE OUR CHOICES ---Episode 4

Situational Sources of Dispositionalism ( continued ) 

4. Motive for group-affirmation

The strong dispositionism many of us experience also derives from the way we perceive the groups to which we are and are not a part. The simple act of categorizing people into groups minimizes within-group variability and maximizes between-group differences. As soon as a group is created, we begin to lose our ability to perceive variability among members, particularly when they are members of an outgroup. In such circumstances, we may largely forego making individualized attributions and, instead, may rely on ready schemas ---often dispositionalizing stereotypes --- to explain outcomes. This process, in part, reflects a strong motivation to see our ingroups in affirming ways. The process may either be one of selectively privileging ingroup members or de-privileging outgroup members through our attributions. When we are considering positive results for an ingroup member, for example, we will tend to be strongly dispositionist (that is, we will explain his or her success as resulting from the good disposition common to members of the ingroup), just as we will tend to be in explaining negative results for an outgroup member (in other words, we will explain his or her failure as resulting from the bad traits common to members of the outgroup). This "ultimate attribution error," as it is sometimes called, is influential in the maintenance of stereotypes. When, other things being equal, a woman wins the office NCAA Tournament pool, for example, men will be more likely to write off her success as"lucky," whereas a man's success is more likely to evince his sports acumen. Although it is the same action and the same result, we perceive it in very different ways depending on our group associations for the actor. Subconsciously, we pick and choose our attributional styles. This selective dispositionism and selective situationism turns out to be strongly affirming. 

5. Motive for system-affirmation 
   Just as we are motivated to see our ingroups and ourselves in positive ways --- and in ways that allow us to feel in control --- we are also inclined to believe that the systems of which we are a part are just and legitimate.We maintain that illusion by attributing bad outcomes to bad people not to a bad world. And we tend to see evidence of apparent unfairness or inequality as the result of disposition or merit. A good summary is this :

   American legitimating myths justify these differences {in economic or social status across social groups } through reference to stereotypes about the characteristics of the members of groups. For example, minority group members are argued to deserve subordinate economic status because they are "lax" or "not intelligent," and holding higher status is associated with possessing more favorable traits, such as competence.

   People are particularly eager to defend their systems when they perceive the legitimacy or stability of such systems as threatened. In those circumstances, people will internalize favorable and unfavorable stereotypes to rationalize the relative positions of advantaged and disadvantaged groups, respectively. Indeed, we often maintain complementary stereotypes that make sense of anticipated social and political outcomes : for example, "poor but honest" and "rich but miserable (or dishonest)."People will also oppose extensions of equality (disrupting the established order), when it comes at the expense of themselves or their own ingroups. 

           EXTERIOR SOURCES OF DISPOSITIONISM 

   The interior sources of dispositionism are often powerfully linked to exterior sources, cues, and frames. As noted earlier, the strength of our dispositionism changes based on whether we are making a causal attribution for our own behavior or for others' behavior and based on whether the outcome is god or bad. We may also make different attributions based on whether we are caught in the moment or trying to make sense of a past event. Moreover, in some cases, elements in our environment that appear quite separate from the attribution at hand may influence the extent of our dispositionism. For example, since the strength of our dispositionism seems to depend significantly on whether we are facing an outside threat, a series of terrorist attacks may make us more likely to explain a homeless person's condition as the result of a poor disposition rather than a result of systemic problems.