Elsevier

Biological Psychology

Volume 68, Issue 2, February 2005, Pages 147-162
Biological Psychology

Cardiac Vagal Tone, defensiveness, and motivational style

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2004.03.019Get rights and content

Abstract

Cardiac Vagal Tone has been proposed as a stable biological marker for the ability to sustain attention and regulate emotion [Porges, Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 59 (1994) 167–186]. Vagal tone is a physiological index of parasympathetic nervous system influence on the heart that has predicted a number of emotional behaviors and styles in infants, children, and adults. Little research, however, has sought to explore the link between vagal tone and established variables relating to personality and self-regulation. In this study, vagal tone was collected during 5-min baseline, stress, and recovery periods. Subjects (n=98) also completed a short form of the Marlowe–Crowne Social Desirability Scale, the Behavioral Activation and Behavioral Inhibition Scales, the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale, the Self-Consciousness Scale, and the Openness to Experience subscale of the Five Factor Personality Inventory. Poorer modulation for vagal tone was associated with greater social anxiety, while lower vagal tone across recording periods was associated with greater defensiveness and lower behavioral activation sensitivity.

Section snippets

Cardiac Vagal Tone, defensiveness, and motivational style

A growing body of psychophysiological research has focused on identifying autonomic correlates of temperament and health vulnerabilities. Cardiac Vagal Tone has received increasing attention, as an index of the extent to which the vagus nerve mediates parasympathetic influence on the heart and other key organs (Porges, 1995). Accumulating evidence suggests that vagal tone may represent an important underlying mechanism in emotional, self-regulatory, and behavioral processes (Porges, 1991,

Participants

Nine hundred twenty-one undergraduates had previously completed a survey that included a measure of defensiveness, the short form of the Marlowe–Crowne Social Desirability Inventory (MC; Reynolds, 1982). Equal numbers of high- and low-defensive participants, based upon a median split, were randomly sampled to be recruited by telephone for an experiment on “personality characteristics,” for which they would receive credits toward a course in introductory psychology. Participants who were

Results

Descriptive statistics for all measures are presented in Table 1. Relationships between vagal measures and other variables of interest were analyzed initially through inspection of the zero-order correlation matrix. Three measures of vagal influence were examined: RSA at baseline, RSA suppression (baseline RSA minus RSA during task), and RSA recovery (RSA during relaxation minus RSA during task). Subtractions for these latter measures were performed such that larger values were indicative of

Discussion

The present data provided modest support for the hypotheses. Results revealed that subjects who showed less suppression of vagal tone during a stressful task were higher in social anxiety than subjects who showed robust suppression. Second, low-defensive subjects exhibited higher vagal tone across all tasks. Third, subjects with greater behavioral activation, particularly with respect to potential rewards, exhibited greater vagal tone. Finally, behavioral inhibition scores interacted with

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Kelli Glass and Lauren Stern for assistance in data collection and entry, and Jim Coan for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this mansucript. We are indebted to Steve Porges for generously providing us with the MX Edit software and manual.

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