Does baseline heart rate variability reflect stable positive emotionality?

•Heart rate variability (HRV) predicts positive emotionality in past studies.•Several HRV metrics were derived from a 6-min. baseline period.•Measures of positive and negative emotion and experience were assessed.•Small, null effects appeared for all HRV metrics and all outcomes.•The linear and non-linear effects from past work were not replicated.

Several recent studies have found significant correlations, medium in effect size, between baseline heart rate variability (HRV) and measures of positive functioning, such as extraversion, agreeableness, and trait positive affectivity. Other research, however, has suggested an optimal level of HRV and found non-linear effects. In the present study, a diverse sample of 239 young adults completed a wide range of measures that reflect positive psychological functioning, including personality traits, an array of positive emotions (measured with the Dispositional Positive Emotions Scale), and depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms (measured with the DASS and CESD). HRV was measured with a 6-min baseline period and quantified using many common HRV metrics (e.g., respiratory sinus arrhythmia, root mean square of successive differences, and others), and potentially confounding behavioral and lifestyle variables (e.g., BMI, caffeine and nicotine use, sleep quality) were assessed. Neither linear nor non-linear effects were found, and the effect sizes were small and near zero. The findings suggest that the cross-sectional relationship between HRV and positive experience deserves more attention and meta-analytic synthesis.