Affective and physiological synchrony in friendships during late adolescence
Abstract
Dyadic synchrony within friendships examines the reciprocal exchange that may unfold between friends, such that the individuals within the dyad may share their emotions in response to or in anticipation of another’s emotions. Researchers have not examined synchrony in response to a stressor in late adolescents’ friendship dyads. This is surprising given the important role of friends in shaping social and emotional development. The current study examined affective and physiological synchrony within 50 college students who were in the developmental period of late adolescence (70% female, M age = 18.85, SD = 0.80) and observed friendship characteristics (friendship quality and negative escalation) that might strengthen synchrony associations. Results suggested that friends shared negative and positive affect, cortisol, and salivary alpha amylase (sAA) responses across a laboratory paradigm designed to induce interpersonal stress. Characteristics associated with lower quality friendships were found to strengthen synchrony associations for sAA and cortisol responses. These findings extend previous research on the ways in which friends may be similar to one another and suggest potential interventions to strengthen social and emotional development.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Alpha-amylase synchrony was stronger in low-quality friendships, possibly reflecting heightened vigilance or conflict sensitivity.
“On the other hand, Cook (89) found that alpha-amylase synchrony was stronger in low-quality friendships, possibly reflecting heightened vigilance or conflict sensitivity.”
From Physiological attunement and flourishing: understanding the influence of relationships on health (2025) · cites this paper as [89]
Friends demonstrated synchronization in negative and positive affect, salivary cortisol and alpha amylase (sAA) responses during the induced stress situation.
“Friends demonstrated synchronization in negative and positive affect, salivary cortisol and alpha amylase (sAA) responses during the induced stress situation.”
From Physiological attunement and flourishing: understanding the influence of relationships on health (2025) · cites this paper as [89]
Lower quality (less supportive, conflicted) friendships were associated with stronger synchrony of sAA and cortisol responses.
“Lower quality (less supportive, conflicted) friendships were associated with stronger synchrony of sAA and cortisol responses.”
From Physiological attunement and flourishing: understanding the influence of relationships on health (2025) · cites this paper as [89]
Emotionally supportive conversations among friends enhanced synchrony in cortisol and alpha-amylase.
“Emotionally supportive conversations among friends enhanced synchrony in cortisol and alpha-amylase (88, 89).”
From Physiological attunement and flourishing: understanding the influence of relationships on health (2025) · cites this paper as [89]
Co-rumination and emotional sharing that led to cortisol synchrony in close friends were associated with higher emotional burden and stress transmission.
“With respect to friendship, in studies of close friends, co-rumination and emotional sharing that led to cortisol synchrony were associated with higher emotional burden and stress transmission (88, 89).”
From Physiological attunement and flourishing: understanding the influence of relationships on health (2025) · cites this paper as [89]
Cites
A guideline of selecting and reporting intraclass correlation coefficients for reliability research
Koo, T. K., & Li, M. Y. (2016) · Journal of Chiropractic Medicine · doi:10.1016/j.jcm.2016.02.012 · Cited by 29,639 · see citing works
Rose, A. J., & Rudolph, K. D. (2006) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/0033-2909.132.1.98 · Cited by 2,517 · see citing works
Feldman, R. (2007) · Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry · doi:10.1111/j.1469-7610.2006.01701.x · Cited by 1,317 · cited 4× · see citing works
“The reciprocal process by which arousal responses may be shared and shaped has been referred to as co-regulation, synchrony, and mutual regulation and can be measured by examining the degree of affective and physiological concordance (e.g., matching arousal levels) within a dyad (Feldman, 2007).”
BackgroundInfluentialCo–Rumination in the Friendships of Girls and Boys
Rose, A. J. (2002) · Child Development · doi:10.1111/1467-8624.00509 · Cited by 1,172 · see citing works
Predicting marital happiness and stability from newlywed interactions
Gottman, J. M., Coan, J., Carrere, S., & Swanson, C. (1998) · Journal of Marriage and the Family · doi:10.2307/353438 · Cited by 1,121 · cited 2× · see citing works
“These studies are commonly conducted in a laboratory setting and may involve individuals within the dyad discussing an issue of conflict, as is typical in research on romantic relationships (Gottman et al., 1998) or having an infant experience a stressful situation (e.”
BackgroundMarital interaction: Physiological linkage and affective exchange.
Levenson, R. W., & Gottman, J. M. (1983) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.45.3.587 · Cited by 855 · cited 4× · see citing works
“…within the dyad generally match their level of physiological arousal to one another during periods of stress or conflict (Coutinho et al., 2019; Helm et al., 2012; Nelson et al., 2017; Saxbe, & Repetti, 2010) as well as their affective states (Levenson & Gottman, 1983; Randall et al., 2013).”
BackgroundResultInfluentialSalivary α‐Amylase in Biobehavioral Research: Recent Developments and Applications
GRANGER, D. A., KIVLIGHAN, K. T., El‐SHEIKH, M., GORDIS, E. B., & STROUD, L. R. (2007) · Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1196/annals.1384.008 · Cited by 572 · see citing works
KLIMES–DOUGAN, B., HASTINGS, P. D., GRANGER, D. A., USHER, B. A., & ZAHN–WAXLER, C. (2001) · Development and Psychopathology · doi:10.1017/s0954579401003157 · Cited by 352 · see citing works
Timmons, A. C., Margolin, G., & Saxbe, D. E. (2015) · Journal of Family Psychology · doi:10.1037/fam0000115 · Cited by 255 · see citing works
Powers, S. I., Pietromonaco, P. R., Gunlicks, M., & Sayer, A. (2006) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.90.4.613 · Cited by 237 · see citing works
Assessing cross-partner associations in physiological responses via coupled oscillator models.
Helm, J. L., Sbarra, D., & Ferrer, E. (2012) · Emotion · doi:10.1037/a0025036 · Cited by 179 · see citing works
Developmental changes and gender differences in adolescents' perceptions of friendships
De Goede, I. H. A., Branje, S. J. T., & Meeus, W. H. J. (2009) · Journal of Adolescence · doi:10.1016/j.adolescence.2009.03.002 · Cited by 166 · see citing works
Coregulation of respiratory sinus arrhythmia in adult romantic partners
Helm, J. L., Sbarra, D. A., & Ferrer, E. (2014) · Emotion · doi:10.1037/a0035960 · Cited by 154 · see citing works
Synchrony of diurnal cortisol pattern in couples
Liu, S., Rovine, M. J., Cousino Klein, L., & Almeida, D. M. (2013) · Journal of Family Psychology · doi:10.1037/a0033735 · Cited by 116 · see citing works
Reitz, E., Deković, M., Meijer, A. M., & Engels, R. C. M. E. (2006) · The Journal of Early Adolescence · doi:10.1177/0272431606288591 · Cited by 103 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Lin, D., Zhu, T., & Wang, Y. (2024) · Physiology & Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.physbeh.2023.114434 · Cited by 50 · see citing works
Physiological attunement and flourishing: understanding the influence of relationships on health
Bastos, M. A. V., Braz, D. F., Porto, A. L. M., Cordeiro, K. S. D. S., Portella, R. B., & Granger, D. A. (2025) · Frontiers in Psychiatry · doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1614379 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
Denk, B., Dimitroff, S., Meier, M., Wienhold, S., Gaertner, R., Klink, E. S. C., Benz, A., Bentele, U. U., & Pruessner, J. C. (2024) · doi:10.31234/osf.io/dws8c · Cited by 6 · see citing works
- Authors
- Cook, E. C.
- Affiliations
- Rhode Island College (US)
- Corresponding author
- Cook, Emily C.
- ORCID
- Cook, Emily C.
- Venue
- Journal of Social and Personal Relationships
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2020-01-06
- Volume
- 37
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 1296-1316
- ISSN
- 0265-4075 (ISSN-L)
- 1460-3608
- OpenAlex
- W2998807354
- Cited by
- 20
- References
- 15
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 1
- FWCI
- 2.73
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Social and Personal Relationships (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Rhode Island College (Internal Grant)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Attachment and Relationship Dynamics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Behavioral Neuroscience › Stress Responses and Cortisol
- Keywords
- affective synchrony, physiological synchrony, friendship dyads, late adolescence, cortisol, salivary amylase, interpersonal stress, friendship quality, emotional sharing, university students, social-emotional development
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
