Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA.
Institute for Evolutionary and Cognitive Anthropology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
Sci Rep. 2018 Jan 9;8(1):127. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-18023-4.
Separate research streams have identified synchrony and arousal as two factors that might contribute to the effects of human rituals on social cohesion and cooperation. But no research has manipulated these variables in the field to investigate their causal - and potentially interactive - effects on prosocial behaviour. Across four experimental sessions involving large samples of strangers, we manipulated the synchronous and physiologically arousing affordances of a group marching task within a sports stadium. We observed participants' subsequent movement, grouping, and cooperation via a camera hidden in the stadium's roof. Synchrony and arousal both showed main effects, predicting larger groups, tighter clustering, and more cooperative behaviour in a free-rider dilemma. Synchrony and arousal also interacted on measures of clustering and cooperation such that synchrony only encouraged closer clustering-and encouraged greater cooperation-when paired with physiological arousal. The research helps us understand why synchrony and arousal often co-occur in rituals around the world. It also represents the first use of real-time spatial tracking as a precise and naturalistic method of simulating collective rituals.
独立的研究线索已经确定了同步性和唤醒度是可能影响人类仪式对社会凝聚力和合作的两个因素。但是，没有研究在现场操纵这些变量来研究它们对亲社会行为的因果关系——以及潜在的交互影响。在涉及大量陌生人的四个实验会议中，我们在体育场内的团体行军任务中操纵了同步性和生理唤醒的功能。我们通过体育场屋顶上隐藏的摄像头观察参与者随后的运动、分组和合作。同步性和唤醒度都表现出主要影响，预测更大的群体、更紧密的聚类和在搭便车困境中更合作的行为。同步性和唤醒度也在聚类和合作的测量上相互作用，使得只有当与生理唤醒相结合时，同步性才会鼓励更紧密的聚类——并鼓励更大的合作。这项研究帮助我们理解为什么同步性和唤醒度在世界各地的仪式中经常同时出现。它还代表了实时空间跟踪首次被用作模拟集体仪式的精确和自然主义方法。
