THE WHAT, WHEN, AND HOW OF DISPOSITIONAL INFERENCE - NEW ANSWERS AND NEW QUESTIONS

The articles in this issue address three sets of questions: How do per ceivers draw dispositional inferences? What is being inferred? And whe n do perceivers engage in dispositional inference? ''How'' questions c oncern process issues, such as the encoding of behavioral data, the in ferential calculi applied to the data, and, more generally, the differ ent ways in which dispositional inferences can be made. ''What'' quest ions concern content issues, such as whether perceivers conceive of di spositions as causal entities or mere descriptors of behavior, as temp orally stable or unstable, as context dependent or independent, and as entailing an interpersonal or an intrapersonal standard of comparison . ''When'' questions concern the condition under which perceivers enga ge in dispositional inference. Do perceivers spontaneously engage in d ispositional inferences? To what extent do perceivers' informational g oals and their conceptions of dispositions influence the likelihood of engaging in dispositional inferences?