New Insights about the Effects of Synchronicity on Creative Thinking, Cohesion, and Positive Affect

Researchers conjecture that rituals have been prevalent in human activities for millennia
due to tacit evolutionary functions of solidarity and cooperation. A key element of
ritualistic behaviours is synchrony, defined as the matching of actions in time with
others. Synchrony has been associated with a range of phenomena, including increased
affiliation, connectedness, and cooperation among group members. However, there have
been a number of failed replications of key studies. Furthermore, synchrony research
has focused mainly on social and affective responses. Synchrony's effects on cognitive
processes remain largely unexamined, even though synchronous actions require social
cognition. In this thesis, I investigate the link between synchrony and creative thinking,
a basic and distinctively human cognitive process. This thesis reports four empirical
studies conducted to investigate two main aims: (1) synthesise existing synchrony
literature to determine synchrony's overall effect on previously studied outcomes; and
(2) investigate the relationship between synchrony and creative thinking. The focus on
creativity is theoretically relevant because both sociological speculations about
synchrony's role on cultural conformity and real-world observations on reduced
decision quality in highly cohesive groups (e.g., groupthink) suggest that synchrony
may have detrimental effects on creativity. To address the first aim, a meta-analysis
(Study 1) of experimentally manipulated synchrony studies showed that synchrony was
positively associated (small to medium effect sizes) with prosocial behaviour, social
bonding perceptions, partner cognition, and positive affect. Three experimental studies
were conducted to address the second aim. Study 2 investigated the direct association
between synchrony and two components of creative thinking - convergent thinking
(i.e., synthesis of ideas toward a single creative solution) and divergent thinking (i.e.,
generation of multiple alternative ideas) - and aimed to replicate shared intentionality
(i.e., shared goal/purpose) on positive social and affective responses.