lay theories of behavioral causality

n. Lay theories of behavioral causality refer to the naive theories laypeople develop and use to explain social events. One widely studied lay causal theory is lay dispositionism, which refers to the use of stable personality traits as the unit of analysis in social perception. People who subscribe to lay dispositionism tend to view behavior as reflecting its corresponding disposition, believe that knowledge of a person's trait is predictive of the person's trait-relevant behavior in a particular situation, and expect behavior to be consistent across situations. In contrast, people subscribing to lay situationism tend to view situational forces as the primary determinants of behaviors and expect low levels of cross-situational consistency in behaviors. Other lay causal theories include lay group theory (the belief that the group has strong influence on an individual's behavior) and lay interactionism (the belief that traits and situations jointly determine a person's behavior).

- CYC