The Rhythms of Discontent: Synchrony Impedes Performance and Group Functioning in an Interdependent Coordination Task

Abstract

Synchrony — intentional, rhythmic motor entrainment in groups — is an important topic in social psychology and the cognitive science of religion. Synchrony has been found to increase trust and prosociality, to index interpersonal attention, and to induce perceptions of similarity and group cohesion. Causal explanations suggest that synchrony induces neurocognitive self-other blurring, leading participants to process one another as identical. In light of such findings, researchers have highlighted synchrony as an important evolved tool for establishing and maintaining collective identity in human groups, particularly within ritual and religious contexts. However, many aspects of group life require coordination rather than mere prosocial cooperation. In coordinative contexts, interpersonal relations and motor sequences are often complementary rather than identical, and leadership hierarchies streamline group decisions. It is thus unclear whether synchrony would benefit or hamper group outcomes in contexts requiring complex interdependent coordination and hierarchy. In a two-condition experimental paradigm, we tested the effects of synchrony on the outcomes of a three-person, complex verbal coordination task. Groups in the synchrony condition performed more poorly on the coordination exercise and reported higher levels of conflict as well as lower levels of group cohesion and similarity. We interpret these results as indicating boundary conditions on the prosocial effects of synchrony: in settings that require complex, interdependent social coordination, the self-other blurring induced by synchrony is situationally inappropriate. These findings dovetail with the anthropological observation that real-world ritual is often focused on establishing and reinforcing social distinctions rather than social unison.

The cultural evolutionary trade-off of ritualistic synchrony

“…These studies paint a clear picture of synchrony's prosocial effects. Not all studies have replicated these effects [41], and there are some conditions where synchrony does not help performance, such as in complex tasks where group members need to fulfil diverse and specialized roles [63,64]. Nevertheless, meta-analyses suggest that synchrony can increase cohesion, cooperation and coordination between group members [65][66][67].…”

Collective rhythm as an emergent property during human social coordination

“…shared purpose or intentions) may explain those social effects, our framework emphasizes that the spontaneous coordination of bodily states may increase the probability of experiencing them. These positive effects have also been reported beyond dyads [von Zimmermann and Richardson, 2016;Jackson et al, 2018], particularly, physiological synchronization has been associated with group cohesion during, for example, teamwork or musical performance [Palumbo et al, 2016], and growing evidence in other social contexts suggests that this relationship is complex and non-linear [Hoehl et al, 2020;Palumbo et al, 2016;Mayo and Gordon, 2020;Wiltshire et al, 2019;Wallot et al, 2016, Wood et al, 2018Dumas and Fairhurst, 2021]. To the best of our knowledge, the only evidence of the prosocial consequences of mimicry at a group level is in studies of emotional contagion [e.g.…”

A Feature-Based Approach to the Comparative Study of “Nonordinary” Experiences

“…Long-term meditators can induce experiences, such as compassion, that produce short-and long-term neural changes (Lutz et al 2008(Lutz et al , 2009. When people move or vocalize synchronously it can lead to an experience of entrainment, in which the boundaries between the individual and the group blur, and which can generate a sense of unity or oneness (Clayton et al 2004;Fischer et al 2013;Jackson et al 2018;Reddish et al 2016;Wood et al 2018). Psychoactive drugs typically produce NOEs, such as a sense of leaving one's body, perceiving and communicating with extraordinary beings, and ego dissolution (Letheby & Gerrans 2017;Millière et al 2018;Taves 2020b;Timmermann et al 2018).…”