To Desire Closeness or to Feel It: Behavioral Synchrony and Mimicry Signal Different Experiences of Interpersonal Closeness

The present work aimed to examine the impact of desiring to be close to someone vs. feeling close on two facets of interpersonal coordination: behavioral synchrony and behavioral mimicry. Dyads composed of strangers (N = 182 participants, N = 91 dyads) engaged in two sequential interactions on a videoconferencing platform. For their first interaction, we varied dyads’ opportunity for disclosure and responsiveness to their partner by randomly assigning dyads to have a social interaction under one of four experimental conditions. These conditions were used to elicit variability in dyads’ desire to be close to their study partner vs. feelings of actual closeness, which participants self-reported immediately following their first interaction. For their second interaction, dyads were videorecorded solving a problem together. Behavioral synchrony and mimicry were measured from these video clips by reliable human coders utilizing macro impression ratings for synchrony and macro and micro coding approaches for mimicry. Results supported that the more participants reported feeling close to their partner after their first interaction, the more they synchronized their behavior during the problem-solving task. In contrast, the less close to their partner participants reported feeling, but the more they desired to be close, the more participants mimicked their partner’s posture during the problem-solving task. We discuss these results in relation to the differing nomological networks of behavioral synchrony and mimicry and make recommendations for measurement approaches that differentiate these interpersonal coordination constructs.