Forms and Functions of Affective Synchrony

Abstract

[CHAPTER] The reproduction of another individual’s emotions in the self – the embodiment of perceived emotions – has been demonstrated to constitute one mechanism for emotional information processing. That is, seeing someone’s emotion expressions and using one’s own face to make the same expression helps the perceiver represent the emotion of the other. When members of a dyad mimic each other’s emotion expressions and by consequence converge in their underlying physiology over time we say that the dyad has reached a state of affective synchrony. The present chapter brings together recent theorizing and research on physiological and expressive affective synchrony. We propose affective synchrony serves three interrelated functions: it enables efficient information exchange, allows for interpersonal emotion regulation, and builds social bonds. We review evidence for the contexts in which affective synchrony arises, propose and evaluate the benefits and costs of achieving these states, and end by suggesting paths for future research in this area.

Emotional experiences in technology-mediated and in-person interactions: an experience-sampling study

“…Our findings help bridge the literature on the emotional underpinnings of social connection (e.g., Lwi et al, 2019;Sun et al, 2020;Wood et al, 2020) with earlier work in the area of human-computer interaction (e.g., Short et al, 1976;Daft & Lengel, 1986). Consistent with our expectations, the links between life-like communication and momentary affective experiences in the present study were of small to medium magnitude.…”

Faces synchronize when communication through spoken language is prevented.

“…Specifically, during cooperative tasks, when lacking a speech channel, members of an interacting dyad should increase communication in nonverbal channels (i.e., be more expressive). And, to reduce processing complexity and enhance prediction of a partner’s behavior, their affective behaviors should become more synchronized (Wood et al, 2020). This prediction is further bolstered by the findings of work by Louwerse and colleagues (Louwerse et al, 2012), which showed that cooperating participants spontaneously synchronized on a number of affective behaviors including laughter and smiling more when they needed to convey difficult, compared with simpler, concepts.…”

“…Most relevant for the present study, affective synchrony also functions to provide a means by which individuals jointly represent their own state and that of an interaction partner. The alignment, in turn, promotes efficient information processing and thereby enhanced task performance because it reduces the number and type of responses shared between members of a dyad and provides an embodied basis for the prediction of a partner’s future behavior (Friston & Frith, 2015; Heerey & Crossley, 2013; Koban et al, 2019; Seth & Critchley, 2013; see Wood et al, 2020, for a more comprehensive discussion of the functions of affective synchrony). That is, when two partner’s emotional responses are aligned, differences in interpretation and goals are reduced, and the ease of the interaction increases (Gupta et al, 2011).…”

Emotional experiences in technology-mediated and in-person interactions: An experience-sampling study

“…Powerful moments of connection that are woven into the fabric of everyday life are fundamental to social and emotional wellbeing (e.g., Mehl et al, 2010;Milek et al, 2018;Sandstrom & Dunn, 2014;Sun et al, 2020). From eye-contact to affective synchrony, previous studies have identified a variety of features of in-person interactions that help people feel connected (see Hietanen, 2018;Lwi et al, 2019;Wood et al, 2020). What has received less EXPERIENCES IN DIGITALLY MEDIATED INTERACTIONS 4 empirical attention is the fact that many of these features can be hard to recreate in digital environments.…”