Let’s Dance Together: Synchrony, Shared Intentionality and Cooperation

Previous research has shown that the matching of rhythmic behaviour between individuals (synchrony) increases cooperation. Such synchrony is most noticeable in music, dance and collective rituals. As well as the matching of behaviour, such collective performances typically involve shared intentionality: performers actively collaborate to produce joint actions. Over three experiments we examined the importance of shared intentionality in promoting cooperation from group synchrony. Experiment 1 compared a condition in which group synchrony was produced through shared intentionality to conditions in which synchrony or asynchrony were created as a by-product of hearing the same or different rhythmic beats. We…

• AU
  Aarhus Universitet
• VU
  Victoria University
• MU
  Masarykova Univerzita
• ES
  European Social Fund

  Award: CZ.1.07