Matters of the variable heart: Respiratory sinus arrhythmia response to marital interaction and associations with marital quality.

Abstract

Maintenance of relationship quality requires self-regulation of emotion and social behavior, and women often display greater effort in this regard than do men. Furthermore, such efforts can deplete the limited capacity for self-regulation. In recent models of self-regulation, resting level of respiratory sinus arrhythmia, quantified as high-frequency heart rate variability (HF-HRV), is an indicator of selfregulatory capacity, whereas transient increases in HF-HRV reflect self-regulatory effort. To test these hypotheses in marriage, 114 young couples completed measures of marital quality and a positive, neutral, or negative initial marital task, preceded and followed by resting baseline assessments of HF-HRV. Couples then discussed a current marital disagreement. Resting HF-HRV was correlated with marital quality, suggesting that capacity for self-regulation is associated with adaptive functioning in close relationships. For women but not men, the negative initial task produced a decrease in resting HF-HRV. This effect was mediated by the husbands' negative affect response to the task and their ratings of wives as controlling and directive. When the subsequent disagreement discussion followed the negative initial task, women displayed increased HF-HRV during the discussion but a decrease when it followed the neutral or positive task. The valence of the initial task had no effect on men's HF-HRV during disagreement. Negative marital interactions can reduce women's resting HF-HRV, with potentially adverse health consequences. Women's reduced health benefit from marriage might reflect the depleting effects on self-regulatory capacity of their greater efforts to manage relationship quality.

Heritage Acculturation Is Associated With Contextual Factors at Four Different Levels of Proximity

“…Indeed, the brain stem nuclei regulating RSA are sites of integration of information from the viscera and higher brain structures that modulate both cardiac activity and a collection of facial muscles implicated in emotional expression and social behavior. In accordance with the Polyvagal Theory, a number of studies have established an association between RSA and various facets of social functioning (e.g., Geisler, Kubiak, Siewert, & Weber, 2013;Gyurak & Ayduk, 2008;Smith et al, 2011). Upon settlement, international students face the important task of forming social relationships, complicated by the necessity to cross a cultural divide.…”

The impact of mindfulness on emotion dysregulation and psychophysiological reactivity under emotional provocation.

“…The measure of physiological reactivity has been employed in many experimental studies as an indicator of emotional response to emotion induction stimuli (e.g., Erisman & Roemer, 2010;Smith et al, 2011). For example, heart rate variability (HRV), the coupling of heart rate and respiration, provides a reliable measure of parasympathetic nervous system activation (Berntson et al, 1997), which has recently been shown to underlie crucial aspects of emotion regulation.…”

“…Other definitions include the ability to move toward valued goals in spite of difficult emotions (Hayes & Feldman, 2004) and also as the process of amplifying, attenuating, or maintaining the strength of emotional reactions (e.g., subjective experience, expressive behavior, and physiological responses; Davidson, 2000). Emotion dysregulation (i.e., difficulties with emotion regulation) has been associated with a variety of forms of psychopathology, including anxiety (Olatunji, Forsyth, & Feldner, 2007), depression (Ehring et al, 2010), anger and aggression (Pond, Kashdan, DeWall, Savostyanova, Lambert, & Fincham, 2012) and decline in interpersonal relationship quality (Smith et al, 2011). As such, it is important to continue to explore ways to improve emotion regulation, and to decrease emotion dysregulation.…”

“…The pattern of variability in heart rate and changes in respiration is called respiratory sinus arrhythmia, and is measured as HRV. Greater changes in heart rate across the respiratory cycle (i.e., increases in HRV) indicate greater parasympathetic activation, which is evoked by efforts to regulate emotion and behavior (Smith et al, 2011). Smith et al (2011) employed heart rate variability (HRV) as an indicator of both emotion regulation capacity (resting levels of HRV) and emotion regulation effort (transient increases in HRV).…”

Emotion regulation and trader expertise: Heart rate variability on the trading floor.

“…HF HRV typically declines during emotionally stressful tasks; for example marital disagreement discussions (Smith et al, 2011), consistent with greater difficulty in regulating emotional reactions and higher HF HRV is associated with greater emotion regulation effort (Butler, Wilhelm, & Gross, 2006) . (2011 ) suggest that traders learn to regulate their emotions during trading over time and that effective task related regulation of emotions is an aspect of trader expertise.…”