ABSTRACT
It should be fairly apparent to the reader why personality-and belief-based theories “fit” under the general heading of dispositionism rather than situationism; if all individuals tend to behave the same way when placed in the same objective situation, there would be little point in studying the mindsets of particular individuals. If the situationists are correct, then there is little to be gained by looking “inside people’s heads.” According to them, we can get all the necessary information about people’s behavior by specifying the nature of the situation the individual faces, not by considering his or her dispositions. Again, however, dispositionists assume that individuals vary in their responses to situations, and they ask what specific factors seem to produce this variation. Since the 1980s, moreover, political psychologists working in fields as diverse as foreign policy decision-making and voting behavior have increasingly sought to explain these individual differences by examining the knowledge structures or cognitive “architecture” inside our heads.
