Abstract
Body synchronization between interacting people involves coordinative movements in time, space and form. The introduction of newer technologies for automated video analysis and motion tracking has considerably improved the accurate measurement of coordination, particularly in temporal and spatial terms. However, the form of interpersonal coordination has been less explored. In the present study we address this gap by exploring the effect of trust on temporal and morphological patterns of interpersonal coordination. We adapted an optical motion-capture system to record spontaneous body movements in pairs of individuals engaged in natural conversations. We conducted two experiments in which we manipulated trust through a breach of expectancy (Study 1: 10 trustful and 10 distrustful participants) and friendship (Study 2: 20 dyads of friends and 20 dyads of strangers). In Study 1, results show the participants' strong, early mirror-like coordination in response to the confederates' breach of trust. In Study 2, imitative coordination tended to be more pronounced in pairs of friends than in pairs of non-friends. Overall, our results show not only that listeners move in reaction to speakers, but also that speakers react to listeners with a chain of dynamic coordination patterns affected by the immediate disposition of, and long-term relationship with, their interlocutors.
Highlights
When people interact socially, they tend to spontaneously synchronize their bodily movements in time, space and form (Bernieri et al, 1988; Bernieri and Rosenthal, 1991)
In-phase synchrony is significantly reduced when participants adopt a negative affective tone toward a tardy confederate (Miles et al, 2010). These findings suggest that psychosocial factors modulate the dynamics of interpersonal coordination
Based on reports indicating that affective factors modulate interpersonal coordination (Miles et al, 2010) and that a violation of expectations usually leads to social tension and distrust (Ma et al, 2015), we expected in both cases to find more coordination between participants in conditions involving trust than in situations of distrust
Summary
They tend to spontaneously synchronize their bodily movements in time, space and form (Bernieri et al, 1988; Bernieri and Rosenthal, 1991) This pervasive feature of social exchanges between people is referred to as interpersonal coordination (Lumsden et al, 2012; Rio and Warren, 2016; Good et al, 2017). Empirical approaches supporting these statements have focused on studying the psychosocial factors that modulate movement coordination when people interact, as well as the social consequences of such coordination (Zhao et al, 2015)
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