How people connect with one another may be more complex — and more fascinating — than previously thought. A new review in Nature Reviews Psychology explores the emerging science of interpersonal physiological synchrony, the phenomenon in which people’s bodies appear to “move together” during social interaction.
Interpersonal physiological synchrony refers to the alignment of signals such as heart rate, heart-rate variability, and electrodermal activity between individuals. While the idea that people can become biologically attuned to one another is compelling, research findings have been surprisingly mixed, with many studies reporting conflicting or null results.
The review suggests that synchrony is not a single, uniform process but a dynamic, multi-layered phenomenon shaped by context, individual differences, and the nature of social interaction. Rather than asking simply whether synchrony exists, the authors urge researchers to explore when , how , and under what conditions it emerges — and what it actually means for human behavior.
In the review invited authors Prof. Ilanit Gordon, from the Department of Psychology at Bar-Ilan University, and Prof. Ronny Bartsch, from the Department of Physics at Bar-Ilan University, highlight the need to move beyond static measurements toward studying synchrony as it unfolds over time. Social interactions are not fixed events but evolving exchanges, and physiological alignment may shift across moments of stress, cooperation, competition, or shared creativity.
The study also points to exciting new frontiers for the field. Future research may examine synchrony in larger groups, opening the door to understanding how biological alignment influences socialization, teamwork, and even complex social processes such as coalition formation or collective behavior.
In addition, the review calls for more rigorous and innovative experimental designs, including replication studies, multimodal approaches that combine physiological, behavioral, and neural data, and emerging causal methods such as biofeedback-based interventions.
As the field advances, researchers hope to uncover not only whether our bodies synchronize during social interaction, but what that synchronization reveals about empathy, collaboration, mental health, and human connection itself.
Nature Reviews Psychology
Correlates of interpersonal physiological synchrony and sources of empirical heterogeneity
16-Feb-2026