Negative cognitive emotion regulation as a predictor of adolescent heart rate variability and entropy under social stress

ABSTRACT

Background and Objectives: Negative cognitive emotion regulation (ER) strategies are particularly important within the framework of anxiety problems amongst youths and how they cope with stressful events. The aim of this study was to examine the associations between both negative and positive ER style and cardiac regulation under stressful conditions.

Design: Eighty-nine adolescents (M = 13.31 years, SD = 0.68, 44.94% girls) were exposed to a socially relevant stress induction protocol.

Methods: Participants’ emotion regulation strategies were assessed and their cardiac function was recorded.

Results: A negative ER style predicted heart rate (HR) entropy at the stressful stage after controlling for anxiety scores. In addition, heart rate variability reactivity and recovery and HR entropy recovery were larger (p < .05) in the low negative ER style group (n = 16) than in the high negative ER style group (n = 23).

Conclusions: Results suggest that individuals with a highly negative ER style have diminished autonomic flexibility.

KEYWORDS:

• Emotion regulation
• stress
• adolescence
• heart rate variability
• entropy

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Dr. Jordi Llabrés for his assistance with the statistical analyses.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO), the State Research Agency (AEI) and the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER) [grant number PSI2016-78403-P (MINECO/AEI/FEDER, EU)]; by the SOIB (Service of Occupation of the Balearic Islands), the European Social Fund (ESF) and Youth Guarantee from the Spanish Ministry of Employment and Social Security [ref. number JQ-SP-49/17].