Abstract
The reproduction of another individual’s emotions in the self—the embodiment of perceived emotions—has been demonstrated to constitute one mechanism for emotional information processing. That is, seeing someone’s emotional expressions and using one’s own face to make the same expression helps the perceiver represent the emotion of the other. When members of a dyad mimic each other’s emotional expressions and by consequence converge in their underlying physiology over time, we say that the dyad has reached a state of affective synchrony. The present chapter brings together recent theorizing and research on physiological and expressive affective synchrony. We propose that affective synchrony serves three interrelated functions: it enables efficient information exchange, allows for interpersonal emotion regulation, and builds social bonds. We review evidence for the contexts in which affective synchrony arises, propose, and evaluate the benefits and costs of achieving these states, and end by suggesting paths for future research in this area.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Abney, D., Paxton, A., Dale, R., & Kello, C. (2015). Movement dynamics reflect a functional role for weak coupling and role structure in dyadic problem solving. Cognitive Processing, 16, 325–332.
Anderson, A. H., Bader, M., Bard, E. G., Boyle, E., Doherty, G. M., Garrod, S., et al. (1991). The HCRC map task corpus. Language and Speech, 34, 351–366.
Atzil, S., Gao, W., Fradkin, I., & Barrett, L. F. (2018). Growing a social brain. Nature Human Behaviour, 2, 624–636.
Atzil, S., Hendler, T., Zagoory-Sharon, O., Winetraub, Y., & Feldman, R. (2012). Synchrony and specificity in the maternal and the paternal brain: Relations to oxytocin and vasopressin. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 51, 798–811.
Bahns, A. J., Crandall, C. S., Gillath, O., & Preacher, K. J. (2017). Similarity in relationships as niche construction: Choice, stability, and influence within dyads in a free choice environment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 112, 329–355.
Barrett, H. C., & Broesch, J. (2012). Prepared social learning about dangerous animals in children. Evolution and Human Behavior, 33, 499–508.
Beckes, L., & Coan, J. A. (2011). Social baseline theory: The role of social proximity in emotion and economy of action. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 5, 976–988.
Bietti, L. M., & Sutton, J. (2015). Interacting to remember at multiple timescales: Coordination, collaboration, cooperation and culture in joint remembering. Interaction Studies, 16, 419–450.
Boker, S. M., & Nesselroade, J. R. (2002). A method for modeling the intrinsic dynamics of intraindividual variability: Recovering the parameters of simulated oscillators in multi-wave panel data. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 37, 127–160.
Bradbury, J. W., & Vehrencamp, S. L. (2011). Principles of animal communication (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.
Busuito, A., Quigley, K. M., Moore, G. A., Voegtline, K. M., & DiPietro, J. A. (2019). In sync: Physiological correlates of behavioral synchrony in infants and mothers. Developmental Psychology, 55, 1034–1045.
Butler, E. A. (2011). Temporal interpersonal emotion systems: The “TIES” that form relationships. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 15, 367–393.
Butler, E. A., & Randall, A. (2013). Emotional coregulation in close relationships. Emotion Review, 5, 202–210.
Champagne, F. A. (2008). Epigenetic mechanisms and the transgenerational effects of maternal care. Frontiers in. Neuroendocrinology, 29, 386–397.
Chartrand, T. L., & Bargh, J. A. (1999). The chameleon effect: The perception-behavior link and social interaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76, 893–910.
Chatel-Goldman, J., Congedo, M., Jutten, C., & Schwartz, J. L. (2014). Touch increases autonomic coupling between romantic partners. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 8, 95.
Cheong, J., Molani, Z., Sadhukha, S., & Chang, L. J. (under review). Synchronized affect in shared experiences strengthens social connection.
Coan, J. A. (2008). Toward a neuroscience of attachment. In J. Cassidy & P. R. Shaver (Eds.), Handbook of attachment: Theory, research, and clinical applications (2nd ed., pp. 241–265). Guilford Press.
Coan, J. A., & Sbarra, D. A. (2015). Social baseline theory: The social regulation of risk and effort. Current Opinion in Psychology, 1, 87–91.
Coan, J. A., Schaefer, H. S., & Davidson, R. J. (2006). Lending a hand social regulation of the neural response to threat. Psychological Science, 17, 1032–1039.
Corner, G. W., Saxbe, D. E., Chaspari, T., Rasmussen, H. F., Perrone, L., Pettit, C., et al. (2019). Compassion in a heartbeat: Physiology during couples’ loss discussions. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 36, 1671–1694.
Crane, A. L., Bairos-Novak, K. R., Sacco, L. H., & Ferrari, M. C. O. (2018). The socially mediated recovery of a fearful fish paired with periodically replaced calm models. Proceedings of the Royal Society b: Biological Sciences, 285, 20180739.
Danyluck, C., & Page-Gould, E. (2019). Social and physiological context can affect the meaning of physiological synchrony. Scientific Reports, 9, 8222.
Derex, M., & Boyd, R. (2016). Partial connectivity increases cultural accumulation within groups. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113, 2982–2987.
Eckland, N. S., Leyro, T. M., Mendes, W. B., & Thompson, R. J. (2019). The role of physiology and voice in emotion perception during social stress. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 43, 493–511.
Ekman, P., Friesen, W. V., & Hager, J. C. (2002). Facial action coding system. Manual and Investigator’s Guide. Salt Lake City, UT Research Nexus.
Favreau, A., Richard-Yris, M. A., Bertin, A., Houdelier, C., & Lumineau, S. (2009). Social influences on circadian behavioural rhythms in vertebrates. Animal Behaviour, 77, 983–989.
Feldman, R. (2007). Maternal-infant contact and child development: Insights from the kangaroo intervention. In L. L'Abate (Ed.), Low-cost approaches to promote physical and mental health: Theory, research, and practice (p. 323–351). New York, NY: Springer Science + Business Media.
Feldman, R. (2011). Maternal touch and the developing infant. In M. J. Hertenstein & S. J. Weiss (Eds.), The handbook of touch: Neuroscience, behavioral, and health perspectives (pp. 373–407). Springer Publishing Co.
Feldman, R. (2012). Bio-behavioral synchrony: A model for integrating biological and microsocial behavioral processes in the study of parenting. Parenting, 12, 154–164.
Feldman, R. (2014). Synchrony and the neurobiological basis of social affiliation. In M. Mikulincer & P. R. Shaver (Eds.), Mechanisms of social connection: From brain to group (pp. 145–166). American Psychological Association.
Feldman, R., Magori-Cohen, R., Galili, G., Singer, M., & Louzoun, Y. (2011). Mother and infant coordinate heart rhythms through episodes of interaction synchrony. Infant Behavior and Development, 34, 569–577.
Feldman, R., Greenbaum, C. W., & Yirmiya, N. (1999). Mother–infant affect synchrony as an antecedent of the emergence of self-control. Developmental Psychology, 35, 223–231.
Fellner, W., Bauer, G. B., & Harley, H. E. (2006). Cognitive implications of synchrony in dolphins: A review. Aquatic Mammals, 32, 511.
Feniger-Schaal, R., Noy, L., Hart, Y., Koren-Karie, N., Mayo, A. E., & Alon, U. (2016). Would you like to play together? Adults’ attachment and the mirror game. Attachment & Human Development, 18, 33–45.
Ferrer, E., & Helm, J. L. (2013). Dynamical systems modeling of physiological coregulation in dyadic interactions. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 88, 296–308.
Field, T., Healy, B. T., Goldstein, S., & Guthertz, M. (1990). Behavior-state matching and synchrony in mother-infant interactions of nondepressed versus depressed dyads. Developmental Psychology, 26, 7–14.
Friston, K. J., & Frith, C. D. (2015). A duet for one. Consciousness and Cognition, 36, 390–405.
Galbusera, L., Finn, M. T. M., Tschacher, W., & Kyselo, M. (2019). Interpersonal synchrony feels good but impedes self-regulation of affect. Scientific Reports, 9, 14691.
Gallese, V., & Goldman, A. (1998). Mirror neurons and the simulation theory of mind-reading. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 2, 493–501.
Gilbert, D. T., Killingsworth, M. A., Eyre, R. N., & Wilson, T. D. (2009). The surprising power of neighborly advice. Science, 323, 1617–1619.
Golland, Y., Mevorach, D., & Levit-Binnun, N. (2019). Affiliative zygomatic synchrony in co-present strangers. Scientific Reports, 9, 3120.
Heerey, E. A., & Crossley, H. M. (2013). Predictive and reactive mechanisms in smile reciprocity. Psychological Science, 24, 1446–1455.
Helm, J. L., Sbarra, D., & Ferrer, E. (2012). Assessing cross-partner associations in physiological responses via coupled oscillator models. Emotion, 12, 748–762.
Hofer, M. A. (1971). Cardiac rate regulated by nutritional factor in young rats. Science, 172, 1039–1041.
Jackson, J. C., Jong, J., Bilkey, D., Whitehouse, H., Zollmann, S., McNaughton, C., et al. (2018). Synchrony and physiological arousal increase cohesion and cooperation in large naturalistic groups. Scientific Reports, 8, 127.
Kang, O., & Wheatley, T. (2017). Pupil dilation patterns spontaneously synchronize across individuals during shared attention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 146, 569–576.
Klinnert, M. D., Campos, J. J., Sorce, J. F., Emde, R. N., & Svejda, M. (1983). Emotions as behavior regulators: Social referencing in infancy. In R. Plutchik & H. Kellerman (Eds.), Emotions in early development (pp. 57–86). Academic Press.
Knoblich, G., Butterfill, S., & Sebanz, N. (2011). Psychological research on joint action: Theory and data. Psychology of Learning and Motivation, 54, 59–101.
Koban, L., Ramamoorthy, A., & Konvalinka, I. (2019). Why do we fall into sync with others? Interpersonal synchronization and the brain’s optimization principle. Social Neuroscience, 14, 1–9.
Karvonen, A., Kykyri, V. L., Kaartinen, J., Penttonen, M., & Seikkula, J. (2016). Sympathetic nervous system synchrony in couple therapy. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 42, 383–395.
Lakin, J. L. (2013). Behavioral mimicry and interpersonal synchrony. In J. A. Hall & M. L. Knapp (Eds.), Nonverbal communication (pp. 539–575). De Gruyter Mouton.
Lakin, J. L., & Chartrand, T. L. (2003). Using nonconscious behavioral mimicry to create affiliation and rapport. Psychological Science, 14, 334–339.
Launay, J., Tarr, B., & Dunbar, R. I. M. (2016). Synchrony as an adaptive mechanism for large-scale human social bonding. Ethology, 122, 779–789.
Leong, V., Byrne, E., Clackson, K., Georgieva, S., Lam, S., & Wass, S. (2017). Speaker gaze increases information coupling between infant and adult brains. In Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 201702493.
Levenson, R. W., & Gottman, J. M. (1983). Marital interaction: Physiological linkage and affective exchange. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45, 587–597.
Likowski, K. U., Weyers, P., Seibt, B., Stöhr, C., Pauli, P., & Mühlberger, A. (2011). Sad and lonely? Sad mood suppresses facial mimicry. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 35, 101–117.
Liu, S., Rovine, M. J., Cousino Klein, L., & Almeida, D. M. (2013). Synchrony of diurnal cortisol pattern in couples. Journal of Family Psychology, 27, 579–588.
Louwerse, M. M., Dale, R., Bard, E. G., & Jeuniaux, P. (2012). Behavior matching in multimodal communication is synchronized. Cognitive Science, 36, 1404–1426.
Main, A., Paxton, A., & Dale, R. (2016). An exploratory analysis of emotion dynamics between mothers and adolescents during conflict discussions. Emotion, 16, 913–928.
Marci, C. D., Ham, J., Moran, E., & Orr, S. P. (2007). Physiologic correlates of perceived therapist empathy and social-emotional process during psychotherapy. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 195, 103–111.
Martin, J. D., Abercrombie, H. C., Gilboa-Schechtman, E., & Niedenthal, P. M. (2018). Functionally distinct smiles elicit different physiological responses in an evaluative context. Scientific Reports, 8, 1–8.
Mayo, O., & Gordon, I. (2020). In and out of synchrony-Behavioral and physiological dynamics of dyadic interpersonal coordination. Psychophysiology, e13574.
Michael, J. (2011). Shared emotions and joint action. Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 2, 355–373.
Miles, L. K., Griffiths, J. L., Richardson, M. J., & Macrae, C. N. (2010). Too late to coordinate: Contextual influences on behavioral synchrony. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40, 52–60.
Mitkidis, P., McGraw, J. J., Roepstorff, A., & Wallot, S. (2015). Building trust: Heart rate synchrony and arousal during joint action increased by public goods game. Physiology & Behavior, 149, 101–106.
Mogan, R., Fischer, R., & Bulbulia, J. A. (2017). To be in synchrony or not? A meta-analysis of synchrony’s effects on behavior, perception, cognition and affect. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 72, 13–20.
Mønster, D., Håkonsson, D. D., Eskildsen, J. K., & Wallot, S. (2016). Physiological evidence of interpersonal dynamics in a cooperative production task. Physiology & Behavior, 156, 24–34.
Moulder, R. G., Boker, S. M., Ramseyer, F., & Tschacher, W. (2018). Determining synchrony between behavioral time series: An application of surrogate data generation for establishing falsifiable null-hypotheses. Psychological Methods, 23, 757–773.
Murphy, B. A., Costello, T. H., & Lilienfeld, S. O. (2018). Is empathic contagion helpful or harmful? Overlooked heterogeneity in the Empathy Index. Psychological Assessment, 30, 1703–1708.
Noy, L., Dekel, E., & Alon, U. (2011). The mirror game as a paradigm for studying the dynamics of two people improvising motion together. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108, 20947–20952.
Oullier, O., de Guzman, G. C., Jantzen, K. J., Lagarde, J., & Kelso, J. A. S. (2008). Social coordination dynamics: Measuring human bonding. Social Neuroscience, 3, 178–192.
Páez, D., Rimé, B., Basabe, N., Wlodarczyk, A., & Zumeta, L. (2015). Psychosocial effects of perceived emotional synchrony in collective gatherings. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 108, 711–729.
Palumbo, R. V., Marraccini, M. E., Weyandt, L. L., Wilder-Smith, O., McGee, H. A., Liu, S., et al. (2017). Interpersonal autonomic physiology: A systematic review of the literature. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 21, 99–141.
Papp, L. M., Pendry, P., Simon, C. D., & Adam, E. K. (2013). Spouses’ cortisol associations and moderators: Testing physiological synchrony and connectedness in everyday life. Family Process, 52, 284–298.
Pascual-Leone, A. (2009). Dynamic emotional processing in experiential therapy: Two steps forward, one step back. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 77, 113–126.
Paxton, A., & Dale, R. (2013). Argument disrupts interpersonal synchrony. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 66, 2092–2102.
Porter, C. L. (2003). Coregulation in mother-infant dyads: Links to infants’ cardiac vagal tone. Psychological Reports, 92, 307–319.
Ramseyer, F., & Tschacher, W. (2006). Synchrony: A core concept for a constructivist approach to psychotherapy. Constructivism in the Human Sciences, 11, 150–171.
Ramseyer, F., & Tschacher, W. (2011). Nonverbal synchrony in psychotherapy: Coordinated body movement reflects relationship quality and outcome. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 79, 284–295.
Reber, R., Winkielman, P., & Schwarz, N. (1998). Effects of perceptual fluency on affective judgments. Psychological Science, 9, 45–48.
Reed, R. G., Barnard, K., & Butler, E. A. (2015). Distinguishing emotional co-regulation from co-dysregulation: An investigation of emotional dynamics and body-weight in romantic couples. Emotion, 15, 45–60.
Repp, B. H., & Penel, A. (2004). Rhythmic movement is attracted more strongly to auditory than to visual rhythms. Psychological Research Psychologische Forschung, 68, 252–270.
Repp, B. H., & Su, Y.-H. (2013). Sensorimotor synchronization: A review of recent research (2006–2012). Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 20, 403–452.
Richardson, M. J., Marsh, K. L., Isenhower, R. W., Goodman, J. R. L., & Schmidt, R. C. (2007). Rocking together: Dynamics of intentional and unintentional interpersonal coordination. Human Movement Science, 26, 867–891.
Riehle, M., Kempkensteffen, J., & Lincoln, T. M. (2017). Quantifying facial expression synchrony in face-to-face dyadic interactions: Temporal dynamics of simultaneously recorded facial EMG signals. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 41, 85–102.
Reich, C. M., Berman, J. S., Dale, R., & Levitt, H. M. (2014). Vocal synchrony in psychotherapy. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 33, 481–494.
Sanders, A. F. (1998). Elements of human performance: Reaction processes and attention in human skill. Erlbaum.
Saxbe, D. E., Beckes, L., Stoycos, S. A., & Coan, J. A. (2020). Social allostasis and social allostatic load: A new model for research in social dynamics, stress, and health. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 15, 469–482.
Saxbe, D., & Repetti, R. L. (2010). For better or worse? Coregulation of couples’ cortisol levels and mood states. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98, 92–103.
Schanberg, S. M., Ingledue, V. F., Lee, J. Y., Hannun, Y. A., & Bartolome, J. V. (2003). PKC alpha mediates maternal touch regulation of growth-related gene expression in infant rats. Neuropsychopharmacology, 28, 1026–1030.
Schmidt, R. C., Carello, C., & Turvey, M. T. (1990). Phase transitions and critical fluctuations in the visual coordination of rhythmic movements between people. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 16, 227–247.
Schmidt, R. C., & O’Brien, B. (1997). Evaluating the dynamics of unintended interpersonal coordination. Ecological Psychology, 9, 189–206.
Schultz, W. (2007). Multiple dopamine functions at different time courses. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 30, 259–288.
Schuyler, B. S., Kral, T. R. A., Jacquart, J., Burghy, C. A., Weng, H. Y., Perlman, D. M., et al. (2014). Temporal dynamics of emotional responding: Amygdala recovery predicts emotional traits. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 9, 176–181.
Sebanz, N., Bekkering, H., & Knoblich, G. (2006). Joint action: Bodies and minds moving together. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 10, 70–76.
Seth, A. K., & Critchley, H. D. (2013). Extending predictive processing to the body: Emotion as interoceptive inference. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 36, 227–228.
Sharon-David, H., Mizrahi, M., Rinott, M., Golland, Y., & Birnbaum, G. E. (2018). Being on the same wavelength: Behavioral synchrony between partners and its influence on the experience of intimacy. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 0265407518809478. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407518809478
Skewes, J. C., Skewes, L., Michael, J., & Konvalinka, I. (2015). Synchronised and complementary coordination mechanisms in an asymmetric joint aiming task. Experimental Brain Research, 233, 551–565.
Skinner, A. L., Osnaya, A., Patel, B., & Perry, S. P. (2019). Mimicking others’ nonverbal signals is associated with increased attitude contagion. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10919-019-00322-1
Snowdon, C. T. (2003). Expression of emotion in nonhuman animals. In R. J. Davidson, K. R. Scherer, & H. H. Goldsmith (Eds.), Series in affective science. Handbook of affective sciences (p. 457–480). Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
Suveg, C., Shaffer, A., & Davis, M. (2016). Family stress moderates relations between physiological and behavioral synchrony and child self-regulation in mother–preschooler dyads. Developmental Psychobiology, 58, 83–97.
Stephens, G. J., Silbert, L. J., & Hasson, U. (2010). Speaker–listener neural coupling underlies successful communication. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107, 14425–14430.
Tamborini, R., Novotny, E., Prabhu, S., Hofer, M., Bente, G., Grall, C., et al. (2018). The effect of behavioral synchrony with black or white virtual agents on outgroup trust. Computers in Human Behavior, 83, 176–183.
Thorson, K. R., West, T. V., & Mendes, W. B. (2018). Measuring physiological influence in dyads: A guide to designing, implementing, and analyzing dyadic physiological studies. Psychological Methods, 23, 595–616.
Tschacher, W., & Meier, D. (2019). Physiological synchrony in psychotherapy sessions. Psychotherapy Research, 1–16.
Vaish, A., & Striano, T. (2004). Is visual reference necessary? Contributions of facial versus vocal cues in 12-month-olds’ social referencing behavior. Developmental Science, 7, 261–269.
Valdesolo, P., & DeSteno, D. (2011). Synchrony and the social tuning of compassion. Emotion, 11, 262–266.
Vallacher, R. R., Nowak, A., & Zochowski, M. (2005). Dynamics of social coordination: The synchronization of internal states in close relationships. Interaction Studies, 6, 35–52.
Wass, S. V., Smith, C. G., Clackson, K., Gibb, C., Eitzenberger, J., & Mirza, F. U. (2019). Parents mimic and influence their infant’s autonomic state through dynamic affective state matching. Current Biology, 29, 2415–2422.
Waters, S. F., West, T. V., Karnilowicz, H. R., & Mendes, W. B. (2017). Affect contagion between mothers and infants: Examining valence and touch. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 146, 1043–1051.
Waters, S. F., West, T. V., & Mendes, W. B. (2014). Stress contagion: Physiological covariation between mothers and infants. Psychological Science, 25, 934–942.
West, T. V., Koslov, K., Page-Gould, E., Major, B., & Mendes, W. B. (2017). Contagious anxiety: Anxious European Americans can transmit their physiological reactivity to African Americans. Psychological Science, 28, 1796–1806.
Wheatley, T., Kang, O., Parkinson, C., & Looser, C. E. (2012). From mind perception to mental connection: Synchrony as a mechanism for social understanding. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 6, 589–606.
Woltering, S., Lishak, V., Elliott, B., Ferraro, L., & Granic, I. (2015). Dyadic attunement and physiological synchrony during mother-child interactions: An exploratory study in children with and without externalizing behavior problems. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 37, 624–633.
Wood, A., Rychlowska, M., Korb, S., & Niedenthal, P. (2016). Fashioning the face: Sensorimotor simulation contributes to facial expression recognition. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 20, 227–240.
Yun, K., Watanabe, K., & Shimojo, S. (2012). Interpersonal body and neural synchronization as a marker of implicit social interaction. Scientific Reports, 2, 959.
Zhao, F., Wood, A., Mutlu, B., & Niedenthal, P. (under review). Faces synchronize when communication through spoken language is prevented.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Wood, A., Lipson, J., Zhao, O., Niedenthal, P. (2021). Forms and Functions of Affective Synchrony. In: Robinson, M.D., Thomas, L.E. (eds) Handbook of Embodied Psychology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78471-3_17
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78471-3_17
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-78470-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-78471-3
eBook Packages: Behavioral Science and PsychologyBehavioral Science and Psychology (R0)