Dispositional Capacity Research Articles

The Dispositional Capacity Worksheet: A clinical tool for physicians.

The Dispositional Capacity Worksheet: A clinical tool for physicians.

Short mindfulness meditation training: does it really reduce perceived stress?

To study whether an 8-week mindfulness meditation training program truly reduces perceived stress without designing a stress reduction program. An experimental study was performed in which we studied the effects of 8 weeks of MM training on attention and awareness, as measured by the MAAS (mindfulness attention awareness scale) and perceived stress, as measured by the PSQ (perceived stress questionnaire), in 80 volunteers from the general public recruited by email from university centers. An increase in the individual’s dispositional capacity to be attentive and aware of the experience of the present moment in everyday life was observed in the experimental group versus the control group; F (2, 156) = 14.30, p = .000, η2 partial = .155. Perceived stress showed no significant differences between groups in: social acceptance; F (2, 156) = 2.30, p = .103, overload; F (2, 156) = 2.32, p = .101, irritability, tension and fatigue; F (2, 156) = 2.27, p = .106, energy and joy; F (2, 156) = 2.79, p = .065. MM practice for 8 weeks of training increases the individual’s dispositional capacity to be attentive and aware of the experience of the present moment in everyday life but may not reduce perceived stress.

A Case for Psychiatric Leadership in Dispositional Capacity Assessment.

Dispositional capacity assessment, which evaluates a patient's ability for self-care after hospital discharge, is a novel concept with important implications for work in consultation-liaison, inpatient, and emergency psychiatric settings. In this Open Forum, the authors present an illustrative case, review literature relevant to dispositional capacity, and explore social theory that elucidates the concept. Psychiatrists are specifically positioned to provide leadership in this area. Psychiatrists should consider further developing and formalizing criteria for dispositional capacity assessment.

Understanding the Breadth and Depth of C-L Psychiatry: Decisional Capacity Assessments

Understanding the Breadth and Depth of C-L Psychiatry: Decisional Capacity Assessments

Shy toddlers act bold: The roles of respiratory sinus arrhythmia and parent emotion language

Shy children show reticence in social contexts, presumably as a way of regulating their fear. The present study evaluated whether toddler physiological regulation and parent emotion language facilitated shy toddlers’ (21–24 months) engagement with an unfamiliar female examiner. Toddler high basal respiratory sinus arrhythmia was positively associated with bold approach with the examiner. Parent emotion explanations were positively associated with toddler bold approach, particularly for toddlers with low basal respiratory sinus arrhythmia. Findings suggest that toddlers’ dispositional capacity for regulation and parents’ explanations of emotion in everyday conversations with their toddlers may help shy toddlers to socially engage.

Amira’s complexity and cosmopolitanism

The capacity of individuals or systems to generate or learn how to generate a metastability, a state of navigating the largely unmanageable aspects of complexity, “cannot be reduced either to the actions of individual actors or to persisting social structures” (Urry, 2016: 59). Complexity largely resists proportionality or linearity; small changes can generate large structural consequences, and individuals will, intellectually or dispositionally, exert considerable resources towards navigating this metastability.This paper explores complexity through Amira, an imagined composite of characteristics gleaned from the author’s research. Amira is a Nepalese woman studying in a postgraduate programme in Europe. The habitus of Bourdieu is repurposed as disposition; a tendency of an individual to act, react, or think in a particular way based on the social systems through which they move. Disposition is advanced in as a necessary addition to the theorizing of mobilities and mobile learning respectively, one that countenances Amira’s navigational practices and learning. It is a fluid process of engagement across multiple contexts, some being materially, deliberately, and dispositionally mobile. Ultimately, it is one that Amira must negotiate to maintain the mobility on which she depends.Mobile technology is positioned as a critical factor in managing Amira’s mobility across her communities. Mobile learning, as an attendant learning position designed to bolster Amira’s capacity for managing her mobility, needs to account for the wider range of this activity: across multiple interactional contexts, amongst people and interactive technologies, encapsulating public and private processes; activity that moves between individual Amira’s) and structural (those “immanent to the material conditions of global interdependence”) systems.Mobile learning, if it to be of use to Amira, needs to account for the wider range of this activity: across multiple interactional contexts, amongst people and interactive technologies, encapsulating public and private processes; activity that moves between micro (Amira’s) and macro (those “immanent to the material conditions of global interdependence”) systems. Mobile learning needs to be accounting for Amira’s capacity for material capacity, intellectual capacity, and, as this paper is attempting to suggest, a dispositional capacity. Disposition is advanced in this paper as a means of expanding her capacity to navigate the complexity of her own mobility, and as a means of expanding research practice towards identifying such complexity.

The multiple pathways by which self-control predicts behavior

The multiple pathways by which self-control predicts behavior

How minimal grade goals and self-control capacity interact in predicting test grades

The present research examined the prediction of school students' grades in an upcoming math test via their minimal grade goals (i.e., the minimum grade in an upcoming test one would be satisfied with). Due to its significance for initiating and maintaining goal-directed behavior, self-control capacity was expected to moderate the relation between students' minimal grade goals and their actual grades. Self-control capacity was defined as the dispositional capacity to override or alter one's dominant response tendencies. Prior to a scheduled math test, 172 vocational track students indicated their minimal grade goal for the test and completed a measure of self-control capacity. The test grade was assessed at a second time of measurement. As expected, minimal grade goals more strongly predicted the actual test grades the higher the students' self-control capacity. Implications can be seen in terms of optimizing the prediction and advancement of academic performance.

Does dispositional capacity for self-control attenuate the relation between self-control demands at work and indicators of job strain?

This study examined whether the individual capacity for self-control (as a psychological resource) moderates (i.e., buffers) the adverse influences of self-control demands (as a psychological work stressor) on employees’ perceived job strain and well-being. To our knowledge this relationship has not previously been studied. In line with the match principle proposed by de Jonge and Dormann (2006), it was assumed that this moderator effect was most likely to emerge in psychological outcomes, whereas physical outcomes were expected to reflect no equivalent relationships. Data collected from 249 health care workers employed in an area of Eastern Germany confirmed both hypotheses. Psychological outcomes (such as emotional exhaustion, depressive symptoms and sleep disorders) clearly indicated that the detrimental impacts of self-control demands are attenuated with an increase in self-control capacity. By way of contrast, musculoskeletal complaints as a physical outcome, which was mainly included as a control variable, failed to reflect any effects of both predictors. Our findings draw attention to the importance of improving the match between self-control demands and self-control capacity of service employees in order to make self-control demands less stressful.

Symptomatic hypercalcemia of immobilization in a patient with end-stage renal disease

The phenomenon of hypercalcemia in immobilization is well known, but there is limited awareness of the potential for this complication in patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) on maintenance hemodialysis with reduced capacity for disposition of calcium. We describe such a patient who showed a calcemic response to just 3 days of immobilization in the setting of an acute illness marked by coma. Despite intensive initial therapy for hypercalcemia, including withdrawal of all calcium products and daily hemodialysis treatments using low calcium baths, her serum calcium rose to 14.0 mg/dL during the hospitalization; this metabolic abnormality appeared to perpetuate her stuporous state. Mobilization as an outpatient was the most effective therapy. Extensive testing was performed to rule out other causes for this patient's hypercalcemia. Greater recognition of acute hypercalcemia in patients with ESRD immobilized by various illnesses would preclude unnecessarily expensive and invasive testing for other causes of hypercalcemia.

Kinetics of fenfluramine isomers in the rat.

The kinetics of fenfluramine isomers were studied in the rat following oral doses of racemic fenfluramine. The data, analyzed using an analogue computer, indicate that the d-fenfluramine is metabolised and excreted at a slower rate than the 1-isomer, resulting in higher plasma and brain concentrations. The kinetic parameters of both isomers were dose-dependent. The rates of disappearance decreased as the dose was raised. The increase in brain area under the curves (AUC) was much greater than the increase of the dose. These findings suggested the rat has a limited capacity for disposition of fenfluramine.