Transitions in Synchrony and their Effects on Affiliation: an Adaptive Dynamical System Model

Interpersonal synchrony is associated with stronger interpersonal affiliation. No matter how well-affiliated people are, interruptions or other transitions in synchrony rebound to occur. One might intuitively expect that transitions in synchrony negatively affect affiliation or liking. Empirical evidence, however, suggests that time periods with interruptions in synchrony may favor affiliation or liking even more than time periods without interruptions in synchrony. This paper introduces an adaptive dynamical system model to explain how persons’ affiliation might benefit from transitions in synchrony over and above mean levels of synchrony. We evaluated the dynamical system model in a series of simulation experiments for two persons with a setup in which a number of scenarios were explored where different (time) episodes occur. The designed adaptive dynamical system model can be used to model the interaction in therapy or counselling sessions. Its dynamics describe not only the emergence of interpersonal synchrony in such sessions and its adaptive effect on affiliation between therapist or counsellor and client, but also regularly occurring transitions of such synchrony and their adaptive effect.