Moving in Sync Creates Surprising Social Bonds among People

Metadata

• Author: [[Marta Zaraska]]
• Full Title: Moving in Sync Creates Surprising Social Bonds among People
• Category: #articles
• URL: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/moving-in-sync-creates-surprising-social-bonds-among-people/

Highlights

• There is also evidence that we have a propensity for synchrony that may have been selected during the course of human evolution, in part because it allows us to bond with large numbers of people at once, offering a survival advantage.
• Psychologists and neuroscientists explain the way synchrony draws people together with a dry term: self-other blurring. “It's a weakening of boundaries between self and other. As we become attuned to other people's actions, whether we do it consciously or not, we integrate them with our own,”
  • Tags: [[coordination]]
• Dunbar now theorizes that in human evolution synchrony might have enhanced grooming as an important bonding mechanism.
• Although not everyone experiences the effects of synchrony with equal force, the experience of moving in rhythm with others or of harmonizing voices appears to play an important role in human societies.