Still Want to Help? Interpersonal Coordination’s Effects on Helping Behaviour After a 24 Hour Delay.

A fast-growing literature is establishing how moving in time together has pro-social consequences, though no work to date has explored the persistence of these effects over time. Across two studies, people who had previously performed coordinated movements were over three times more likely to give their time to help their co-actor when asked 24 hours later than those who had performed an uncoordinated version of the task. Findings showed that group-level categorization, but not social affiliation, may partially mediate helping behaviour. This provides preliminary evidence that the pro-social effects of coordination are sustainable over a longer period than previously reported, and that the effects of coordination upon pro-social motivation may be more related to a change in group level categorisation rather than to increased social affiliation.