Interpersonal Synchronization Protects Against the Antisocial Outcomes of Frustration

Abstract

Prosociality improves with interpersonal synchronization—the temporal coordination of movement across individuals. We tested whether the benefits of interpersonal synchronization extend to temporary circumstances of induced frustration, where negative changes in prosociality are expected as a result. Participants performed two joint tasks—synchronization versus non-synchronization. Each task was performed twice, with high versus low induced frustration. After each joint task, prosociality was measured both with explicit tests, in which participants were aware of the test goal, and implicit ones, where they were less aware. Frustration levels per task were also reported. Results showed that increase in frustration led to decrease in implicit prosociality after the non-synchronization task, but not after synchronization, suggesting that interpersonal synchronization attenuates the antisocial outcomes of frustration. In addition, our study highlights the advantages of implicit measures of prosociality, among which the test we created (Interpersonal Trust Test) may stand as a useful resource in future experimental research.