The articles in this issue address three sets of questions: How do percievers draw dispositional inferences? What is being inferred? And when do perceives engage in dispositional inference? 'How "questions concern process issues, such as the encoding of behavioral data, the inferential calculi applied to the data, and, more generally, the different ways in which dispositional inferences can be made. 'What" questions concern content issues, such as whether perceivers conceive of dispositions as causal entities or mere descriptors of behavior, as temporally stable or unstable, as context dependent or independent, and as entailing an interpersonal or an intrapersonal standard of comparison. 'When " questions concern the condition under which perceivers engage in dispositional inference: Do perceivers spontaneously engage in dispositional inferences? To what extent do perceivers' informational goals and their conceptions of dispositions influence the likelihood of engaging in dispositional inferences?
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