Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

When people move together, as they dance, march or flirt, itincreases affiliation between them. But what about ‘movingtogether’ produces affiliation: the movements themselves, orthe social context of moving ‘together’? We instructed pairs ofparticipants to listen to music and move their arms or legsaccording to shapes appearing on screen. They either carriedout the same movements, or when one moved their arms theother moved their legs. They either saw shapes on one laptop,or each had their own laptop. Surprisingly, participants did notlike each other more if they carried out the same movements,but affiliation did increase if they danced looking at the samescreen. Rather than their movements, instructions, intentionsor perceptual experiences, here it is the social context of theactions that produces affiliation, a surprising finding that is noteasily accounted for by the dominant theories of mimicry andbehavioural synchrony.