Dispositional

A citizen criticizing a president by saying the nation is lacking economic progress and health because the president is either lazy or lacking in economic intuition is utilizing a dispositional attribution.

An internal, or dispositional, attribution assigns behavior to causes related to inner traits such as personality, disposition, character or ability.

A property can be dispositional (or potential), i.e. it can be a tendency: in the way that glass objects tend to break, or are disposed to break, even if they do not actually break.

As a simple example, if Alice saw Bob trip over a rock and fall, Alice might consider Bob to be clumsy or careless (dispositional).

Dispositional attribution, also referred to as internal attribution, attempts to point to a person’s traits, abilities, motives, or dispositions as a cause or explanation for their actions.

For instance, the fundamental attribution error is the tendency to make dispositional attributions for behavior, overestimating the influence of personality and underestimating the influence of situations.