Chapter Content
Okay, so, um, this is about getting in sync with people. You know, like, how we connect. It all started with something kind of funny, actually. My, uh, significant other, Brett, he suggested, you know, for our wedding, we should, like, toss our rings to each other. I know, right? Like, catch them. He thought it would be awesome. Simultaneously catching our own rings!
And, uh, well, he likes throwing things. Like, if I'm heading out the door, he'll toss me the keys. Or if I mention a snack, boom, there's an orange flying at me from across the kitchen. And, you know, the thing is, to catch these things, you gotta know it's coming, anticipate the move, get your hand in the right place. And when I actually catch it, the keys or the orange, he just feels like we're, like, totally connected, anticipating each other's needs. But, wedding rings? That just seemed… ambitious, to say the least. Plus, wouldn't it be, I don't know, bad luck to drop the ring on our wedding day? So, yeah, that didn't happen.
But, at the time, I thought his whole thing with physical synchronicity was just kind of a quirky, cute thing. I didn’t really think about it much beyond the, you know, "no ring toss" decision. But, it turns out, there's actually, like, some serious science behind it! Recent research suggests that when people's brains and bodies are more in sync, they tend to understand each other better. Which, maybe explains Brett a little bit.
And get this – it's not just humans! There's this neuroscientist, Michael Yartsev, and he has this "bat cave" at UC Berkeley. It's home to, like, hundreds of bats. And apparently, bats are super social. They communicate, they build roosts together, they huddle up to sleep. They even have squabbles, just like us! So, what Yartsev did was he released pairs of bats in a "flight room," which is, like, a little lab space. And the bats would choose to hang out together. And get this – their brain activity became synchronized! Like, the more they interacted, the more their brains were in sync. And the more in sync they were, the more they socialized. It’s like a feedback loop. But if they were in separate rooms, no brain synchrony. So it wasn't just about being active or sleepy at the same time, it was about the social thing.
Makes you think, right? Like, you probably have an intuition about who you’d naturally click with if you were stuck in a room with someone, and who you wouldn't. And, yeah, human brains do the same thing. They synchronize during social interactions. And it turns out, that this brain synchrony is a huge factor in good communication.
Think about it. You know those times when someone explains something and it just "clicks"? Or when a friend just gets you on a really deep level? Or when you're working with a team that anticipates each other's moves perfectly? Or when you're dancing with someone and it feels like you're one person? Like, if you have a friend or partner who finishes your sentences or makes the same observation you were about to make, you might think, "Our brains work the same way!" And sometimes, it's actually true! It turns out being "in sync" is more than just a saying, it's about your brains actually doing the same thing, mirroring each other, or at least coordinating. Like those bats! This coordination is, like, a foundation for social communication.
And, yeah, you probably already know what it feels like to be "on the same page" with someone, physically or mentally. Like, Brett throwing me the keys, that's a physical thing. Sharing coordinated movements with someone can be really rewarding. Studies show that being in rhythmic sync with others, even just drumming, it actually activates the reward system in your brain! And people value being in sync even when they don't get any useful information from it! Like this study where people felt more connected when their keyboard tapping rhythms were synced with a preprogrammed system. It wasn’t even a real person, but the synchrony made them feel closer.
So, you know, when Brett throws me the keys, and I catch them, our brains are temporarily in sync, each following the path of the keys, calculating where my hand needs to be. It can be rewarding when we work together, though also when we go through difficult experiences together! Like people show more activation in those reward regions when cooperating to solve a maze than when they're doing it alone. The social relevance system just, like, helps us understand other people and align with them, and then the reward system kicks in when we're aligned.
But, it's not just about the reward, right? Brain synchrony is the basis for understanding each other, and being able to communicate effectively and work together. It’s a big part of what makes us able to tell someone about something, and they understand our experience!
For instance, when people listened to a stranger tell a story, the more the listener's brain mirrored the speaker's, the more they remembered later. It's like, when your brains are in sync, you actually learn better. And, like, in a lab experiment, the more teammates' brain activity was synchronized while solving problems, the better they performed. This neural synchronization is key to communicating information about experiences someone else hasn't had yet!
So, being able to synchronize our brains helps us learn from other people's experiences. If your doctor understands your daily routine, they can make a plan that works for you to take your meds! If your boss can describe a presentation she gave, and you can picture the room, even though you've never been there, you can adjust your presentation to make it work for that room. It's all about getting on the same wavelength. It helps you anticipate what your teammates will do, which makes working together much smoother.
Okay, so, we've talked about how brain synchrony helps us understand each other. But, you know, sometimes you just feel like you're out of sync with people, which can make it hard to connect. Like, maybe you're in an argument, and you feel like the other person just doesn't understand the basic facts. Or you have a coworker who always rubs you the wrong way. So, to figure out why we sometimes feel out of sync, it helps to look at why some of us are more in sync to begin with. Think about the friend who knows exactly what you need when you've had a bad day, or the sibling who gets all your family dynamics, or the coworker who shares your sense of humor. What makes some people "just click"?
Well, research shows that the brain patterns of close friends are really similar when they're making sense of the world. Researchers had MBA students watch short video clips, and close friends showed more synchronized brain responses. And, get this, students who responded more similarly at the beginning of the semester were more likely to become friends as the year went on. So, people whose brains work similarly may find it easier to connect. “Brains of a feather flock together.”
And it's not just about external stuff, like videos. Even when people just let their minds wander, friends show more similar brain patterns to each other than to people they aren't close to. They also found similar patterns in a Korean fishing village. Villagers who were closer in their social networks showed more similar brain activity while their minds wandered. And those who lived physically closer, sharing similar day-to-day experiences, also showed more synchrony. It suggests that people who are friends, and people who share similar life experiences, tend to respond to the world in similar ways.
But, our lives aren't just shaped by friends and location. Media shapes a lot of our reality, too. And this works in both directions. Your current attitudes affect the media you seek out. Like, someone who gets their news from Fox is going to see different stories and angles than someone watching CNN. And, importantly, when people watch the same media, spend time together, and communicate, their brains and bodies synchronize. But people who consume different media, they diverge in how their brains respond to identical content. The media we consume influences how we see the world and interact with others. So media institutions play a big role in shaping our worldviews.
Recent research shows that consuming the same media brings people's brain responses into sync. Like, in one study, volunteers watched "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," and their brains were scanned. It turned out that brain activity in one audience member could predict brain activity in others.
Some of this was driven by the sensory experiences in the movie. But, the audience also showed synchrony in regions that track higher-order thinking, like self- and social relevance. It doesn't mean they were having the exact same thoughts, but that shared background knowledge about pop culture, values, generates overlap in what people find socially relevant. These bits of background knowledge are also accessible to the creatives involved in making media, from writers to directors.
Media also shapes our brain responses to political issues, along with our political identities. If you watch Fox, and I watch CNN, our brains become more similar to other Fox watchers and CNN watchers. In one study, emotional words in news elicited more similar responses in people with similar political views. The more shared experience you have, the more synchrony in the brain.
This is likely bidirectional. Changing what we consume can change what we think is important. When researchers incentivized Fox News viewers to watch CNN, it changed not only what they knew about, but what issues they thought were important, their opinions on policies, and how they felt about politicians. When you change someone's media diet, it changes their beliefs and opinions!
Knowing this, we can think about the media we consume and how it shapes our views. It can open up new possibilities for who we feel in sync with, and who we don’t. Media are a big factor in the assumptions we make about others, and those assumptions can pull us in or out of sync.
Okay, here’s a story to think about. It's late at night. Lee gets a phone call from his friend Arthur. Arthur just got home from a party and lost track of his wife, Joanie. Arthur suspects she's cheating. "You can't trust her," he says. "I swear to God, you can't." Lee tries to soothe Arthur, and there's a woman in his bed, listening. We don't know much about her.
In the story, "Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes," by J. D. Salinger, much is left to the imagination. Is the woman in the bed Joanie? We don't know! Some assumptions you make depend on what you bring to the story. What do you know about these people? This situation?
Research highlights that as our starting assumptions diverge, our brains respond differently to what comes next. But, creating shared context biases our brains to see stories similarly, as though we've been bats flying around together. Volunteers had their brains scanned while listening to an excerpt from that Salinger story. Some were given a backstory that the woman in Lee's bed is Arthur's wife. Others were told that Lee and Joanie weren't having an affair.
Volunteers who were given the same backstories interpreted the conversation similarly, and their brains were in sync. But when people were given different backstories, their brain responses diverged. Creating shared context biases our brains to see stories in similar ways.
So, the researchers created a situation where one group shared one set of beliefs, and the other group another. These beliefs can feel really strong in our daily lives. One reason we might get off on the wrong foot with someone, or shift our opinion of them, is that incorrect assumptions pull us out of sync. Even if we share the same values and politics, other forces shape our assumptions. This is true in political discussions, but also at home or in the office.
Okay, imagine Joyce is working on a presentation and is excited to get feedback from her manager, Maya, whom she looks up to. Maya thinks Joyce is great and wants to help her ideas move forward. But, the night before, Maya doesn't sleep well, rushes through her morning, and hasn't had lunch by the time the presentation rolls around. As Joyce presents, she focuses on Maya's bored expression. After the presentation, Maya is short with her.
"Interesting approach," she says. "I wonder if Cheryl might also have some useful feedback." Then she leaves.
Joyce is crushed.
But Maya really did think the approach was interesting! She was impressed and excited to work with Joyce. She also needs to eat.
If Joyce could see Maya's hunger, she could adjust her interpretation of the feedback. But she doesn't have that information. With the wrong assumption, she can't predict Maya's thoughts and actions. So, while Maya scarfs down lunch and sends enthusiastic emails, Joyce is defeatedly moving through her afternoon. They are out of sync.
Neuroscience shows that people with different knowledge, experiences, and assumptions diverge, even when they are hearing the same words or seeing the same facts. Since Joyce doesn't know that Maya is hungry and tired, her brain interprets "interesting approach" differently than Maya meant it.
But, when people share assumptions about the backstory, their brains interpret new information in parallel ways. If Joyce knew that Maya was thinking about Cheryl's project, she would understand why Maya suggested they talk. In the political sphere, people overestimate how much the other group dislikes them, and correcting those assumptions reduces harmful behaviors.
That is part of what motivated Tonya Mosley to change how she engages as a reporter. She said that, over and over, there wasn’t a meeting of the minds on basic principles of humanity, about listening to each other, caring for each other. Being in sync requires common ground. But getting there is a whole other thing.
Since it seems impossible not to have assumptions, the situation might seem doomed. But knowing that people have hidden, wrong assumptions is a possible way to improve communication. Simply knowing this puts a flashlight in your hand.
So how do you shine that flashlight around? How do you ask, where are the possibilities?
One way is to have conversations that explicitly surface assumptions and interpretations. Conversations can bring people's brain activity into alignment, and the effects of being aligned can persist later. In one study, volunteers watched movie clips that could be interpreted in different ways, and then discussed what they had seen with others. Discussing interpretations brought group members' brains into greater alignment when they watched the clip again. And it also resulted in greater alignment when they saw new clips that hadn't been discussed. Shared understanding can help get our brains in sync more generally, including when making sense of new evidence and situations.
If Maya and Joyce had had lunch together, Joyce might have learned how hungry Maya was. Or if Maya had shared a caveat about her morning before the presentation, Joyce might have felt better. Informal communication is necessary to understand each other's thoughts, feelings, and perspectives.
But get this: in one of these research studies, groups that had someone who was perceived as "higher in status" often looked like they had adopted a consensus view, when really the high-status person was steering the group, pushing people to adopt their viewpoints. But when the researchers scanned everyone's brain, they found that the group members were actually out of sync. The lower-status group members were simply going along to get along. They might agree with their boss in the meeting but then undermine the plan back at their desks.
However, when a group had someone who was liked and connected to many peers, the group members agreed in both their verbal responses and their brain activity. These more central folks were more deeply influential, but also more flexible. They were happy to move toward the opinions of others. They asked follow-up questions, asked people to explain what they meant, and their groups ended up more in sync.
This is the curiosity that Tonya models with her guests on air. We can each practice listening more openly. Ask questions we're genuinely curious to learn the answers to. It matters who is in the group not only for the information they bring but also for the group's ability to arrive at a real consensus. Would you rather be the person who bulldozes others into a false consensus or who creates deeper neural alignment? Tonya sees the conversations she has with people on air as opening up new paths toward a more functional society, for how we might solve problems together.
Conversations offer one way to surface assumptions, give others a chance to share their perspectives, and get in sync. In what other ways might understanding synchrony help us build a stronger sense of connection?
Now that we've seen how shared neural representations go hand in hand with shared thoughts, we might think that increasing synchrony should be the main goal. But, maybe we don't want to be perfectly in sync all the time. Sometimes we might want to aim for a different form of coordination, in which we complement one another and push each other to explore new territory.
There is value to the ways we are different. Surprise captures people's attention, and people like conversations where they learn new things. To grow in our sense of possibility, we want to connect ideas that haven't been connected before and engage with people whose life experiences might suggest different interpretations.
If our brains were fully in sync all the time, there would be little room to discover new ideas. Instead of aiming for continuous synchronicity, like only spending time with people you immediately "click" with, maybe the goal should be to get in sync enough that we can depart from the same common ground, then diverge in where we guide the conversation, facilitating exploration.
A recent study highlights the conversational benefits of divergence. Pairs of friends or strangers played a game called "Fast Friends." The game involves taking turns asking and answering questions that build in their level of intimacy. When people play this game, they tend to enjoy it and feel closer at the end, regardless of whether they expect to like one another.
During these conversations, an interesting pattern emerged. As expected, pairs of strangers increased their synchrony. Close friends, on the other hand, started more in sync, but then their brains diverged. The friends tended to cover a wider range of topics, diverging into new territory and switching back and forth between topics. The strangers stuck more closely to a smaller range of topics.
But get this – the strangers who covered many topics also showed more divergence in their brain responses and reported enjoying the conversations more. So, establishing common ground early, and then diverging, was associated with having a better conversation.
I think about this research when I'm with people I don't know very well. Strangers will use "launchpad topics" like the weather to get into a conversation, while people with more established friendships can dive right into deeper and more varied topics, and often have more fun. Instead of spending the whole conversation discussing the weather, I might ask someone whom they would invite to the party if they could have anyone else in the world as a guest, or what they've dreamed of doing that is challenging to do while juggling kids. Their answers often surprise me.
This research shows that there are benefits to having established common ground. Once we are secure in that foundation, we can explore new topics and learn new things. We don't want everyone to have the exact same neural response all the time. Instead, we want to coordinate in more sophisticated ways, dividing mental work, taking turns leading and following in conversations, and exploring new ground.
What about when we feel hopelessly out of sync? Being listened to can depolarize people's attitudes by decreasing defensiveness. And we can benefit from listening with the goal of understanding others' points of view. In one of these studies, when people were nudged to compromise, they explored a wider range of ideas and ended up more aligned in their decisions. For those from whom we know we differ, exploring what we might have in common, can support constructive connection.
It can feel effortless to be in sync with people close to us. But it takes deliberate work to set up the conditions to get there. Asking questions, being present when they answer. A lot of this groundwork for how we can come into sync has to do with how we share information and stories with each other. From the media we consume to the happenings in our everyday lives. All of this informs how we see the world and connect with each other.
But what motivates us to share in the first place? Understanding this might help us have more agency in what we decide to share, how we connect with others, and in understanding how others might tap into these same motivations for their own ends.