The State Regulation Capacity Scale (SRCS): Construct Definition and a Validation Agenda for a Body-First Model of Self-Regulation.

State self-regulation under acute pressure is widely treated as decisive for performance, yet it is measured in fragments. Existing self-report instruments capture interoceptive awareness, cognitive emotion regulation, perceived stress, or trait resilience, but none operationalizes the integrated, trainable capacity to detect, interpret, and deliberately shift one's own physiological state, and to move one's resting state over time. This paper defines that construct, state-regulation capacity, and introduces the State Regulation Capacity Scale (SRCS), a measure built to capture it, together with a validation agenda. Building on predictive-processing and interoceptive accounts of self-regulation, I specify the construct as the self-perceived capacity to run a five-operation loop (sense, track, attune, transform, encode) and distinguish it from adjacent constructs. I present a deductively generated item pool, a provisional five-factor structure, and a phased validation pathway with a defined nomological net, including convergent and discriminant predictions against interoceptive awareness, cognitive reappraisal, perceived stress, and autonomic indices. Consistent with calls to reduce questionable measurement practices, the instrument is presented as unvalidated, no psychometric data are reported, and the analytic model is specified in advance of data collection. The contribution is a transparent measurement agenda intended to make a body-first account of self-regulation empirically testable.