Dispositional Beliefs

Acting Contrary to Our Professed Beliefs or the Gulf between Occurrent Judgment and Dispositional Belief

People often sincerely assert or judge one thing (for example, that all the races are intellectually equal) while at the same time being disposed to act in a way evidently quite contrary to the espoused attitude (for example, in a way that seems to suggest an implicit assumption of the intellectual superiority of their own race). Such cases should be regarded as ‘in-between’ cases of believing,...

Dispositional optimism.

Optimism is a cognitive construct (expectancies regarding future outcomes) that also relates to motivation: optimistic people exert effort, whereas pessimistic people disengage from effort. Study of optimism began largely in health contexts, finding positive associations between optimism and markers of better psychological and physical health. Physical health effects likely occur through differ...

Dispositional Pluralism

Dispositional essentialism

Dispositions, Mellor once remarked, are as shameful in many eyes as pregnant spinsters used to be, ' ideally to be explained away, or entitled to a shotgun wedding to take the name of some decently real categorical property' [18]. This 'Victorian prejudice' against dispositions still exists. On reflection, this fact is perhaps not really surprising. Dispositions have dallied in most corners of ...

Knowledge Entails Dispositional Belief

Unconfident examinee: Kate is taking a history test. She had studied carefully and has been doing well on all the questions so far. She has now reached the final question, which reads “What year did Queen Elizabeth die?” As Kate reads this question she feels relief, since she had expected this question and memorized the answer. But before Kate can pause to recall the date, the teacher interrupt...