Heart rate variability and emotion regulation: Multiethnic differences in reappraisal and suppression

Recent work found ethnic differences in the association between resting heart rate variability (HRV), an index of emotion regulation (ER) capacity, and ER difficulties. The present study examined whether this relationship exists among American adults from other marginalized ethnic backgrounds living in the United States, 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 and ER, indexed by suppression and reappraisal. A total of 1,047 emerging adults (M_age = 19.7 years [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 waist circumference 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 in American cultural contexts. Additional social contexts, including geographical locations and discrimination, should be investigated as mediators of these associations in future work. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).