learners (Dweck, 1975, 1999). This work argued that degree of persistence in
the face of intellectual challenge reflects underlying belief systems. Entity
learners, who see intelligence as fixed, want to look as good as they can and
tend to quit when problems prove difficult because they conclude the prob-
lems are beyond them. In contrast, incremental learners, who see intelligence
as learnable, prove stubborn in the face of intellectual challenge and labor
through problems to improve themselves, with less concern for looking good
in the short term. An extended program of research has shown that these
traits are independent of cognitive abilities, but often influence cognitive per-
formance greatly. Also teaching style and classroom culture can influence
considerably the extent to which students adopt entity versus incremental
mindsets.
As this brief review demonstrates, dispositional views of thinking abound
in both philosophy and psychology. Even though the term disposition is not
always used, may scholars have examined what mobilizes the thinking abili-
ties people have. The next section examines these causal mechanisms further,
proposing a specific model of how dispositions operate.
THE TRIADIC ANALYSIS OF THINKING
DISPOSITIONS
You read a newspaper article reporting studies showing that less sleep corre-
lates with greater health. You wonder whether you should cut back on your
sleep and live longer. Yet wait, isn’t this identifying correlation with causa-
tion? You are curious and also it matters to you, so you ask yourself: Are
there other reasons why studies might show such a correlation? In a few mo-
ments, you assemble several. For example, ill people might need more sleep.
You decide to leave your sleeping habits alone.
In the spirit of Dewey, Norris, Stanovich, and others mentioned earlier
who have emphasized the dispositional side of thinking, this anecdote illus-
trates the importance of “When is good thinking?” alongside “What is good
thinking?” As to the what, it is good thinking to be cautious about inferring
causation from correlation and to identify alternative plausible reasons for a
correlation. As to when, one has to register the situation in the first place as a
possibly hasty causal inference, and care enough to think it through. These
are dispositional aspects of thinking.
The anecdote introduces a three-way analysis of thinking behavior that
has guided our research for several years. The three aspects of thinking are
called sensitivity, inclination, and ability. Sensitivity concerns whether a per-
son notices occasions in the ongoing flow of events that might call for think-
ing, as in noticing a possibly hasty causal inference, a sweeping generaliza-
tion, a limiting assumption to be challenged, or a provocative problem to be
358 PERKINS AND RITCHHART