Psychology’s recognition of the body’s influence on the mind coincides with a recent focus on the role of the heart in our social psychology.

It turns out that the heart is not only critical for survival, but also for how people related to one another. In particular, heart rate variability (HRV), variation in the heart’s beat-to-beat interval, plays a key role in social behaviors ranging from decision-making, regulating one’s emotions, coping with stress, and even academic engagement. 

Decreased HRV appears to be related to depression and autism and may be linked to thinking about information deliberately