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Interpersonal synchrony feels good but impedes self-regulation of affect

The social benefits of interpersonal synchrony are widely recognized. Yet, little is known about its impact on the self. According to enactive cognitive science, the human self for its stability and regulation needs to balance social attunement with disengagement from others. Too much interpersonal...

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Autores principales: Galbusera, Laura, Finn, Michael T. M., Tschacher, Wolfgang, Kyselo, Miriam
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6789117/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31604966
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-50960-0
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author Galbusera, Laura
Finn, Michael T. M.
Tschacher, Wolfgang
Kyselo, Miriam
author_facet Galbusera, Laura
Finn, Michael T. M.
Tschacher, Wolfgang
Kyselo, Miriam
author_sort Galbusera, Laura
collection PubMed
description The social benefits of interpersonal synchrony are widely recognized. Yet, little is known about its impact on the self. According to enactive cognitive science, the human self for its stability and regulation needs to balance social attunement with disengagement from others. Too much interpersonal synchrony is considered detrimental for a person’s ability to self-regulate. In this study, 66 adults took part in the Body-Conversation Task (BCT), a dyadic movement task promoting spontaneous social interaction. Using whole-body behavioural imaging, we investigated the simultaneous impact of interpersonal synchrony (between persons) and intrapersonal synchrony (within a person) on positive affect and self-regulation of affect. We hypothesized that interpersonal synchrony’s known tendency to increase positive affect would have a trade-off, decreasing a person’s ability to self-regulate affect. Interpersonal synchrony predicted an increase in positive affect. Consistent with our hypothesis, it simultaneously predicted a weakening in self-regulation of affect. Intrapersonal synchrony, however, tended to oppose these effects. Our findings challenge the widespread belief that harmony with others has only beneficial effects, pointing to the need to better understand the impact of interaction dynamics on the stability and regulation of the human self.
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spelling pubmed-67891172019-10-17 Interpersonal synchrony feels good but impedes self-regulation of affect Galbusera, Laura Finn, Michael T. M. Tschacher, Wolfgang Kyselo, Miriam Sci Rep Article The social benefits of interpersonal synchrony are widely recognized. Yet, little is known about its impact on the self. According to enactive cognitive science, the human self for its stability and regulation needs to balance social attunement with disengagement from others. Too much interpersonal synchrony is considered detrimental for a person’s ability to self-regulate. In this study, 66 adults took part in the Body-Conversation Task (BCT), a dyadic movement task promoting spontaneous social interaction. Using whole-body behavioural imaging, we investigated the simultaneous impact of interpersonal synchrony (between persons) and intrapersonal synchrony (within a person) on positive affect and self-regulation of affect. We hypothesized that interpersonal synchrony’s known tendency to increase positive affect would have a trade-off, decreasing a person’s ability to self-regulate affect. Interpersonal synchrony predicted an increase in positive affect. Consistent with our hypothesis, it simultaneously predicted a weakening in self-regulation of affect. Intrapersonal synchrony, however, tended to oppose these effects. Our findings challenge the widespread belief that harmony with others has only beneficial effects, pointing to the need to better understand the impact of interaction dynamics on the stability and regulation of the human self. Nature Publishing Group UK 2019-10-11 /pmc/articles/PMC6789117/ /pubmed/31604966 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-50960-0 Text en © The Author(s) 2019 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Galbusera, Laura
Finn, Michael T. M.
Tschacher, Wolfgang
Kyselo, Miriam
Interpersonal synchrony feels good but impedes self-regulation of affect
title Interpersonal synchrony feels good but impedes self-regulation of affect
title_full Interpersonal synchrony feels good but impedes self-regulation of affect
title_fullStr Interpersonal synchrony feels good but impedes self-regulation of affect
title_full_unstemmed Interpersonal synchrony feels good but impedes self-regulation of affect
title_short Interpersonal synchrony feels good but impedes self-regulation of affect
title_sort interpersonal synchrony feels good but impedes self-regulation of affect
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6789117/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31604966
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-50960-0
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