Interpersonal synchrony affects performers' sense of agency

We investigated if interpersonal synchrony can lead to a sense of agency over another's movement (extended self-agency). In Experiment 1, we found that extended self-agency was greater during synchrony than asynchrony. However, we also found that synchrony boosted participants' sense that...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Self and identity 2020-05, Vol.19 (4), p.389-411
Main Authors: Reddish, Paul, Tong, Eddie M. W., Jong, Jonathan, Whitehouse, Harvey
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
agency
coordination
joint action
self
Synchrony
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Summary:We investigated if interpersonal synchrony can lead to a sense of agency over another's movement (extended self-agency). In Experiment 1, we found that extended self-agency was greater during synchrony than asynchrony. However, we also found that synchrony boosted participants' sense that the other performer had agency over their actions (extended other-agency). This finding may have been because synchrony created a sense of distributed agency. If so, then manipulating the degree of influence participants have over their partner's behavior should boost extended self-agency when leading and extended other-agency when following. Experiment 2 confirmed these predictions. We also found synchrony created a sense of joint-agency. These results show how interpersonal synchrony can modulate a core aspect of the self.
ISSN:1529-8868
1529-8876
DOI:10.1080/15298868.2019.1604427