Dispositional attribution is the explanation of individual behavior as a result caused by internal characteristics that reside within the individual, as opposed to outside (situational) influences that stem from the environment or culture in which that individual is found. Dispositionalism is the general tendency to prefer dispositional attribution rather than situational attribution.
For example, dispositional optimism is a tendency that applies generally across situations, but situational optimism is having hope and expecting a good outcome in a specific situation.
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“The intension of a proposition comprises whatever the proposition entails: and it includes nothing else.... The connotation or intension of a function comprises all that attribution of this predicate to anything entails as also predicable to that thing.”
—Clarence Lewis (1883–1964)