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Correlates of interpersonal physiological synchrony and sources of empirical heterogeneity

Nature Reviews Psychology (2026)Cite this article

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Abstract

Interpersonal physiological synchrony refers to the temporal coordination of physiological processes among several individuals and is considered to be an emergent property of sociality and cooperation. However, despite decades of work the psychological meaning of interpersonal physiological synchrony remains ambiguous. In this Review, we synthesize all interpersonal physiological synchrony findings with a focus on key review articles and empirical papers published between 2020 and 2024. We identify social-oriented, performance-oriented and self-oriented correlates of interpersonal physiological synchrony and point to critical issues for each domain. We then expand on methodological and theoretical sources of empirical heterogeneity across the interpersonal physiological synchrony literature. We conclude with hypotheses and design recommendations for future studies with the aim of advancing the field towards a more verified, rigorous and nuanced understanding of interpersonal physiological synchrony.

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Fig. 1: Window parameter settings across different experiments.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank N. Titelman, X. Li and S. Wallot for their help and comments. The authors used ChatGPT and Grammarly for artificial intelligence-assisted copy editing.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Department of Psychology, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel

    Ilanit Gordon

  2. The Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, Bar Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel

    Ilanit Gordon

  3. The Yale Child Study Center, Yale School of Medicine, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

    Ilanit Gordon

  4. The Department of Physics, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel

    Ronny P. Bartsch

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Gordon, I., Bartsch, R.P. Correlates of interpersonal physiological synchrony and sources of empirical heterogeneity. Nat Rev Psychol (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-026-00535-4

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