Abstract
Abstract We all move in time together throughout our lives, and doing so has been shown to lead to more pro-social attitudes and behaviors towards co-actors. However, little research has investigated how coordinated movement affects how individuals feel about themselves. This mixed-methods study took self-generated qualitative responses of how participants construed their own identities after either coordinated movement or a carefully matched control task. Responses were analysed qualitatively using thematic analyses, and quantitatively using content analysis. Four themes were identified from thematic analysis, and inferential statistical testing showed significant differences in how participants construed their identities post coordination (cf. control). Participants in the coordinated condition generated a higher proportion of interdependent (social) rather than independent (personal) self-construals, driven by differences in broad social structures/constructs rather than close specific social relations. Furthermore, participants in the coordinated condition reported less mental state items, and more sexual/romantic items. These findings may explain how and why coordinated movement leads to prosociality amongst those who take part, by leading individuals to think of themselves and each other in group terms.
Highlights
We all move in time together throughout our lives, and doing so has been shown to lead to more pro-social attitudes and behaviors towards co-actors
Mean vector length (MVL) is the circular equivalent of the standard deviation (Batchelet (1981); see Wilson et al (2005a, b) for more detail). It is the normalised length of the resultant vector obtained by summing the relative phase vectors from each time step and measures coordination stability
It effectively summarises the consistency of the relative phasing between movements
Summary
We all move in time together throughout our lives, and doing so has been shown to lead to more pro-social attitudes and behaviors towards co-actors. Moving in time together in such ways has been shown to foster a range of prosocial effects, including increased liking, similarity, closeness, overlap, rapport, helping and cooperation amongst co-actors (Anshel & Kipper 1988; Atherton et al, 2019; Cross et al, 2016, 2019a; 2020 Good & Ruso 2016; Hove & Risen 2009; Kokal et al, 2011; Launay et al, 2014; Rabinowitch & Knafo-Noam 2015; Rabinowitch & Meltzoff 2017; Reddish, et al, 2013,2014; Wiltermuth & Heath 2009). The extent to which people viewed themselves as individuals vs group members in the above three studies was shown to partially mediate the relationship between coordination and affiliation / helping These studies suggest coordination does affect how individuals view their own identities and provides some evidence that these may mediate entrainment‘s effects on pro-social outcomes like affiliation or helping
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