Effects of Interpersonal Movement Synchrony on Infant Helping Behaviors

Abstract

MOVING IN SYNCHRONY WITH OTHERS ENCOURAGESprosocial behavior. Adults who walk, sing, or tap together are later more likely to be cooperative, helpful, and rate each other as likeable. Our previous studies demonstrated that interpersonal synchrony encourages helpfulness even in 14-month-old infants. However, in those studies, infants always experienced interpersonal synchrony in a musical context. Here we investigated whether synchronous movement in a nonmusical context has similar effects on infant helpfulness. Fourteen-month-olds were bounced gently while the experimenter faced the infant and bounced with them either in-or out-of-synchrony. In contrast to our previous studies, instead of listening to music during this interpersonal movement phase while being bounced, infants listened to nonrhythmic nature sounds. We then tested infant prosociality directed toward the experimenter. Results showed that synchronous bouncing still encouraged more prosociality than asynchronous bouncing, despite the absence of music. However, helping was more delayed and fussiness rates were much higher than in our previous studies with music. Thus music may not be necessary for interpersonal synchrony to influence infant helpfulness, but the presence of music may act as a mood regulator or distractor to help keep infants happy and allow them to fully experience the effects of synchronous movement.

Editorial: The Evolution of Rhythm Cognition: Timing in Music and Speech

“…Common foci are the relationship between synchronization and prosociality (Gebauer et al, 2016; Reddish et al, 2016; Rennung and Göritz, 2016; Tunçgenç and Cohen, 2016; Cirelli et al, 2017), and different forms of rhythmic behaviors in interaction (Large and Gray, 2015; Ravignani, 2015; Yu and Tomonaga, 2015; Ellamil et al, 2016; Gebauer et al, 2016; Greenfield et al, 2016; Moore et al, 2016; Schirmer et al, 2016; Wallot et al, 2016; Murphy and Schul, 2017). …”

Rhythm and melody as social signals for infants

“…Prosocial consequences of synchrony are evident even in the absence of music, but the presence of music enhances infant mood. 50 Similar prosocial effects of synchrony have been found in older children. For example, 4-to 6-yearolds offer more help to peers after synchronous compared with asynchronous clapping.…”

“…Together, these results suggest that synchronous bouncing encourages infants to help the synchronous movement partner and members of that person's social group, but it does not generate indiscriminate helpfulness. Prosocial consequences of synchrony are evident even in the absence of music, but the presence of music enhances infant mood …”

The Evolution of Rhythm Cognition: Timing in Music and Speech

“…The relationship between rhythm and sociality has seen a steady increase in research and has probably been the most investigated topic over the last 2 years (Large and Gray, 2015;Yu and Tomonaga, 2015;Ellamil et al, 2016;Gebauer et al, 2016;Greenfield et al, 2016;Moore et al, 2016;Reddish et al, 2016;Rennung and Göritz, 2016;Schirmer et al, 2016;Tunçgenç and Cohen, 2016;Wallot et al, 2016;Bishop and Goebl, 2017;Chang et al, 2017;Cirelli et al, 2017;Hannon et al, 2017;Knight et al, 2017;Mogan et al, 2017;Murphy and Schul, 2017;Rorato et al, 2017;Myers et al). Common foci are the relationship between synchronization and prosociality (Gebauer et al, 2016;Reddish et al, 2016;Rennung and Göritz, 2016;Tunçgenç and Cohen, 2016;Cirelli et al, 2017), and different forms of rhythmic behaviors in interaction (Large and Gray, 2015;Ravignani, 2015;Yu and Tomonaga, 2015;Ellamil et al, 2016;Gebauer et al, 2016;Greenfield et al, 2016;Moore et al, 2016;Schirmer et al, 2016;Wallot et al, 2016;Murphy and Schul, 2017).…”

“…Common foci are the relationship between synchronization and prosociality (Gebauer et al, 2016;Reddish et al, 2016;Rennung and Göritz, 2016;Tunçgenç and Cohen, 2016;Cirelli et al, 2017), and different forms of rhythmic behaviors in interaction (Large and Gray, 2015;Ravignani, 2015;Yu and Tomonaga, 2015;Ellamil et al, 2016;Gebauer et al, 2016;Greenfield et al, 2016;Moore et al, 2016;Schirmer et al, 2016;Wallot et al, 2016;Murphy and Schul, 2017).…”