A new scientific study shows that people engaged in synchronous activities are more likely to cooperate with other group members than they would normally do. Actions like playing in a marching band, training together for military, or singing the national anthem together makes people come to realize the value of friendship and collaboration. Researchers at Stanford, who were behind the new research, said that synchronous activities were very likely to change the dynamics of interactions within a group even if its members had never before met or only knew each other superficially.

In their experiments, psychologists Scott S. Wiltermuth and Chip Heath conducted a series of tests on two batches of volunteers at the University. The two groups were asked to walk around campus, each in its specific pattern. While members of the first one strolled as they pleased, the others were asked to walk in the same step, following each other's foot prints. Following the walk, both groups were asked to participate in an economics game, where they were told that the monetary incentive would be highest for most cooperation.

The results proved that synchrony drastically improved cooperation. This was further emphasized by the fact that even if both groups were paid to cooperate, the members of the synchronous group collaborated more. This was obvious in the case of the economics game, where members were far more likely than their peers in the other group to donate money to a “public account,” sacrificing their own money for the interest of the group. This was not visible in the asynchronous group, where the students were far more likely to exhibit selfish tendencies, which, in the end, only hurt the entire group.

The researchers say that one of the main reasons why people in the first group cooperated was that they felt like a team, even though they only engaged in synchronous activities for a fairly limited amount of time. But apparently even a short time span is sufficient to generate feelings of belonging and inclusion, which have very beneficial results for all members in the end. “Synchrony rituals may have therefore endowed some cultural groups with an advantage in societal evolution, leading some groups to survive where others have failed,” says the new paper, published in the January issue of the journal Psychological Science.