Social bonding happens in time : interpersonal synchronisation in the silent disco

Abstract

Dance is a fundamentally social activity. Studies have begun to examine the role of movement in music for conveying emotional states, potentially revealing a useful mechanism for the communication of emotions, while other studies have found that joint synchrony increases interpersonal affiliation. However, music and movement studies have focused on individuals and comparatively few studies have involved multiple simultaneous participants. The aim of the proposed research is to examine the importance of synchrony in a dance setting for building interpersonal affiliation. This was tested using a Silent Disco scenario, in which participants heard the music in slightly different timing to each other. Participants were drawn from the population of a Finnish university, and were able to self-select partners. In a within-subjects design, it was found that pairs experienced a greater sense of interpersonal affiliation while in the synchronous condition than in the asynchronous conditions. Self-reported results were supported by behavioural measurements of interpersonal affiliation. Further analysis found a positive relationship between Trait Agreeableness and self-reported affiliation in the synchronous condition. These findings are discussed in the context of current research around synchrony and social bonding, and provide new insights into the role of synchrony in social dancing or therapeutic settings. It may be concluded that shared experiences are more effective at bringing us together when they are shared in time.