Dancing, rowing and even finger tapping in unison unleash powerful forces in the brain that drive good feelings

By Marta Zaraska on Scientific American

See complete article here published October 2020

Excerpt: Many group activities boost our sense of belonging, but research shows that doing things synchronously can build even stronger social ties and create a greater sense of well-being. Crew rowing, line dancing, choir singing or simply tapping fingers in sync increases generosity, trust and tolerance toward others, often beyond effects seen in more disorderly doings. It can even increase people’s threshold for pain. Why simultaneous, coordinated movement delivers this extra dose of affinity is just now becoming understood, according to Laura Cirelli, a psychologist and synchrony researcher at the University of Toronto. The phenomenon’s powerful effects on us result from a combination of neurohormonal, cognitive and perceptual factors. “It’s a complicated interplay,” she says. 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.