Book chapter
Attributions and Ideologies: Two Divergent Visions of Human Behavior Behind Our Laws, Policies, and Theories
Ideology, Psychology, and Law
11 Jan 2012
Abstract
This chapter describes a major rift extending across many important debates over our legal structures, policies, and theories of law. It argues that the divide is based, to a significant extent, on contrasting attributional tendencies: the less accurate dispositionist approach, which explains outcomes and behavior with reference to people’s dispositions (that is, stable personalities, preferences, and the like), and the more accurate situationist approach, which bases attributions of causation and responsibility on unseen influences within us and around us (that is, cognitive proclivities and structures and external environmental forces). As this chapter summarizes, research on the underlying motives and conceptual metaphors behind conservatism and liberalism help explain the vital connections between those attributional styles and political ideologies.
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1 citations in Scopus
Details
- Title
- Attributions and Ideologies: Two Divergent Visions of Human Behavior Behind Our Laws, Policies, and Theories
- Creators
- Jon HansonAdam Benforado
- Publication Details
- Ideology, Psychology, and Law
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press
- Resource Type
- Book chapter
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Thomas R. Kline School of Law
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-84921763422
- Other Identifier
- 991019173988204721