The emergence of pro-social behaviors and social interacton skills is a major focus ofresearch on children’s development. Here, we consider one important feature ofhuman social interactons, interpersonal movement synchrony, and explore its efectson pro-sociality among young children. Coordinated movements are a crucial part ofmother–infant interactons, with important social efects extending well into childhood.Musical interactons are also known to facilitate bonding between infants andcaretakers and pro-sociality among peers. We specifcally examine the pro-social effectsof interpersonal movement synchrony in a naturalistc peer-play context among4- to 6-year-old children. We assessed the amount of helping behavior between pairsof children following an actvity that they performed synchronously or nonsynchronously.Children who engaged in synchronous play, as compared with nonsynchronousplay, showed signifcantly more subsequent spontaneous helpingbehavior. Further, more mutual smiling and eye contact were observed in the synchronousconditon and amounts of mutual smiling and eye contact during the movementtask correlated with amount of helping behavior observed. Neither measure mediatedthe conditon-wise efects on helping, however. These results are discussed in termsof their contributon to existng literature and their broader implicatons for the developmentof pro-sociality and coordinated movements in early childhood.
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