Gender differences in synchrony: Females in sync during unstructured dyadic conversation

Abstract

AbstractAlthough previous studies have reported that individual prosocial traits generally enhance synchrony, gender as a social factor was not the subject of focus. The present study examined gender differences in synchrony by conducting three experiments on dyadic unstructured conversations with same‐gender strangers. Synchrony was assessed by calculating the cross‐wavelet coherence and determining the relative phase. As expected, through the three experiments, the female dyads showed a higher degree of synchrony, compared to the male dyads. Moreover, the conversation type (i.e., structured monologue vs. unstructured dialogue) did not moderate the gender effect (Experiment 2), while synchrony in the female dyads was influenced by the preceding conversation (Experiment 3). In contrast, through the three experiments, the role of the relative phase was unclear. The findings indicate that the social factor, gender, has an impact on synchrony, and that interpersonal sensitivity contributes to synchrony.