Heart rate variability and emotion regulation: Multi-ethnic differences in reappraisal and suppression

Recent work found ethnic differences in the association between heart-rate variability, an index of emotion regulation (ER) capacity, and ER difficulties. The present study examined whether this relationship exists in adults from other marginalized ethnic backgrounds, African American|AfAm and Hispanic or Latino Americans|Hispanics, which remains unexplored in the literature. We addressed this gap by investigating whether self-reported ethnicity differentially moderated the relationship between log-transformed high-frequency HRV (HRV), and ER, indexed by suppression and reappraisal. A total of 1047 emerging adults (Mage = 19.7 yrs [1.7]) had complete ER and resting 10-min HRV data (82 AfAm [65% women], 183 Asians [52% women], 228 Hispanics [59% women], and 554 non-Hispanic White|NHW [60% women]). HRV was highest among AfAm and Hispanics and lowest among Asian individuals. Linear regression, adjusting for body habitus and sex, revealed that the HRV-reappraisal associations were of greater magnitude among self-identified ethnic minorities than NHW, despite similar mean levels of reappraisal. AfAm and Hispanics showed statistically similar negative associations, while similar marginal positive associations were observed among Asians and NHW. In contrast, AfAm and Asian individuals showed a statistically similar positive HRV-suppression association, which differed marginally from NHW. NHW reported lower suppression compared to all groups and showed a unique negative HRV-suppression association. Findings suggest that neurovisceral capacity and sociocultural contexts may jointly establish culturally-patterned regulatory behavior. Particular contexts, including discrimination, should be investigated as mediators of these associations in future work.