Up- and down-regulating facial disgust: Affective, vagal, sympathetic, and respiratory consequences Heath A. Demaree a, * , Brandon J. Schmeichel b , Jennifer L. Robinson a , Jie Pu a , D. Erik Everhart c , Gary G. Berntson d a Department of Psychology, Case Western Reserve University, Mather Memorial Building, Room 109, 11220 Bellflower Road, Cleveland, OH 44106, USA b Department of Psychology, Texas A&M, College Station, TX 77843, USA c Department of Psychology, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC 27858, USA d Department of Psychology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA Received 22 August 2004; accepted 28 February 2005 Available online 20 June 2005 Abstract Relative to watching in a natural manner, people asked to suppress or exaggerate their facial response to a negative emotional stimulus experience greater activation of the sympathetic nervous system but report a similar subjective emotional experience. The present research extends prior research on response modulation in two important ways. First, discrete indicators of cardiac vagal and sympathetic control (respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and pre-ejection period (PEP), respectively) were included as dependent measures along with interbeat interval (IBI) and skin conductance (EDR). Second, to help generalize results across response-focused modulation techniques, participants suppressed, exaggerated, or exerted no control over their responses while watching a disgust-eliciting film (for control purposes, a fourth group was asked to watch a neutral film naturally). Response modulation was associated with significantly decreased PEP (increased cardiac sympathetic control) relative to those in the natural-watch conditions. All participants evidenced increased EDR while watching the disgusting clip, but facial modulation did not produce EDR reactivity beyond that of watching the disgusting film naturally. Exaggerators experienced decreased IBI during modulation (perhaps due to increased muscle contraction) whereas all other groups showed increased IBI (i.e., the orienting response). Neither emotional experience nor facial modulation reliably impacted RSA, respiration rate, or inspiratory depth. # 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Heart rate variability; Pre-ejection period; Skin conductance; Response-focused modulation; Respiratory sinus arrhythmia; Cardiovascular disease When confronted with an emotional stimulus, people often use a response-focused modulation technique such as suppression or exaggeration to respond to the situation in a context-appropriate manner (e.g., Wegner and Pennebaker, 1993). Behaviorally down-regulating (e.g., not smiling after beating a friend at a game) or up-regulating (e.g., showing great sadness when a colleague histrionically tells you about their traffic woes while coming to work) an affective response is critical to social functioning and the develop- ment of interpersonal relationships (Gross, 1999, 2002). There are two reasons why expressive suppression and exaggeration were selected as the modulation strategies of interest in the present study. First, suppression and exaggeration are both ‘‘response-focused’’ modulation techniques because each strategy is initiated after the onset of an emotional stimulus (Gross, 2002). Though it has been argued that all response-focused strategies should lead to increased sympathetic arousal (Gross, 1998, p. 226), rarely have these two response-focused strategies been evaluated in the same experiment. By comparing and contrasting suppression to exaggeration, the present researchers sought to extend our current understanding of the autonomic and affective consequences of these two strategies and to www.elsevier.com/locate/biopsycho Biological Psychology 71 (2006) 90–99 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 216 368 6468; fax: +1 216 368 4891. E-mail address: Heath.Demaree@Case.edu (H.A. Demaree). 0301-0511/$ – see front matter # 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.biopsycho.2005.02.006