Michael Vianin
Emotion regulation is an example of a disposition that influences manifestation of symptoms in patients suffering from musculoskeletal disorders. Maladaptive emotion regulation, such as rumination, can lead to unhelpful cognitive and behavioral coping strategies that end up potentiating the problem instead of solving it. Patients find themselves stuck in a maladaptive passive-avoidant coping strategy (suppression of elicited emotions) instead of developing constructive concrete problem-solving (re-appraisal of elicited emotions).
Suppression (avoidance) and re-appraisal (approach) responses (emotions, cognitions, and behaviors) are rooted in two neurophysiological systems: the behavioral inhibition system (BIS) and the behavioral activation system (BAS). Maladaptive emotion regulation, such as rumination, can shift the pain response from BAS-dominant to BIS-dominant, therefore promoting pain catastrophizing. Pain catastrophizing can then lead to pain-related fear and activity avoidance, eventually resulting in disability (disuse and depression).
On the other hand, dispositional factors such as stress, fatigue, motivation, as well as personality and temperamental traits influence the way emotions are perceived and regulated. An acute state of sleep deprivation, for example, may make a person less able or willing to engage in adaptive responses, leading to a number of sub-optimal decision processes and behaviors. Therefore, dispositions do not exist by themselves, but are part of a whole of dispositions that interact with each other, influence and change each other in the process. Different contexts will manifest themselves differently. This means that, from a dispositionalism perspective, all causality is complex because it requires the interaction of one or more sets of dispositions that need to be considered in the context of the interaction itself.
Read more:
Kohn, N., Morawetz, C., Weymar, M., Yuan, J., & Dolcos, F. (2021). Editorial: Cognitive Control of Emotions in Challenging Contexts. Frontiers In Behavioral Neuroscience, 15. doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2021.785875
VIANIN, M. (2021). DISPOSITIONALISM IN MUSCULOSKELETAL CARE. [S.l.]: EVOLVE GLOBAL PUBLISHING