Depending on the particular behavior and interaction in question, behavioral cycles of interpersonal entrainment can range from milliseconds to hours. Indeed, this kind of interpersonal entrainment is a pervasive phenomenon not specific to human social behavior alone’,
When does synchronized clapping occur? The distinctive feature of such an event is a convergence between the neural mechanisms underlying the monitoring of the movement of others and the execution of one’s own movements. The specific factors responsible for the tipping point from asynchronous to synchronous clapping are not yet known, but descriptively each individual shifts the timing of his or her subsequent clap to the perceived timing of claps by the whole collective. Thus, a continuous adjustment process emerges in the form of a collective behavior (synchronized clapping) to which each individual contributes and no single individual controls. Such continuous monitoring of the collective rather than individuals within the collective and the adjustment of one’s own movements to synchronize one’s behavior with that of the collective result in a continuous loop of performing the very same action leading to dissolution between self and other and the emergence of an entrained unit. The resulting effect is the materialization of a supra-individual behavioral phenomenon, namely extended behavioral cycles that are locked together in time. Although the emergence of clapping in unison can be regarded as a phenomenon worthy of more detailed understanding, it does not induce in its performers the necessity of searching for an explanation since the readily available account is that the
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performance somehow produces synchronous clapping.
There is preliminary evidence that even with no externally imposed demands prolonged synchronization emerges within pairs of people interacting or dyads’. What one finds is that despite individual differences in movements, participants entrain (tap together in time) rapidly when participants can perceive the behavior of others’. Extensive research in coordination dynamics has demonstrated that such entrainment does not depend on the intention to coordinate behavior '. 1 Studies have repeatedly shown that there is a spontaneous propensity to mimic other people (generally observed in dyads). One implication this kind of behavioral synchrony is the emergence of affective bonding — such as a feeling of rapport — both in the case of mimicry" and between the synchronized partners'”. One might conjecture that positive feelings are even stronger when more people are synchronized.
The conditions that lead to behavioral synchrony can vary. It is interesting that people may be more likely to experience the dissolution of self-other boundaries when synchronization is produced without any obvious external director and is continuous. Prolonged spontaneous and unintended entrainment among three or more people may introduce this feeling, because the emergence of synchrony cannot be attributed to a single external cause.
Conclusions
Social interaction involving extended periods of synchronized behavior are not part of our daily experience, particularly when they involve more than two people. How do
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