A research team led by Researcher WEI Zhengde and Prof. ZHANG Xiaochu from the Department of Psychology at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) studied how emotional synchronization in romantic relationships and close friendships is influenced by the quality. They mainly discovered that romantic couples exhibit greater emotional and prefrontal alpha synchronization compared to close friends, especially when the relationship quality is low. Their findings were published on NeuroImage.

Emotions are integral to social interactions and are deeply intertwined with interpersonal dynamics, especially in romantic relationships. While previous research has explored aspects of neural activity in romantic relationships, the connection between relationship quality and neural synchronization, particularly regarding underlying emotions, has remained somewhat of a mystery. To address this gap, the study aimed to compare emotional coordination between romantic couples and close friends using Electroencephalogram (EEG)-hyperscanning during a non-interactive video-watching paradigm.

Researchers recruited 25 pairs of heterosexual couples and 25 pairs of heterosexual friends from local universities. And then the team utilized EEG to record the brain signals of participants as they watched emotionally charged videos. Participants' subjective emotional experiences evoked by the videos were assessed through questionnaires and the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM) rating method. The study selected video materials capable of eliciting six fundamental emotions: happiness, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, and surprise.

The primary findings revealed that couples exhibited significantly higher levels of behavioral and prefrontal alpha synchronization compared to friends. This was evident during the emotional video-watching task and in the ability to understand and interpret each other's emotional states.

Apart from that, role of relationship quality matters, especially in couples. Those with low relationship quality required increased neural synchronization to maintain good behavioral synchronization. Interestingly, a negative correlation was found between relationship quality and neural synchronization in couples, which was further explored by categorizing couples into high-quality and low-quality groups.

Group differences during emotion coordination. (Image by WEI et al.)

In conclusion, this study shed light on how intrinsic emotions related to relationship quality influence neural and behavioral synchronization in romantic relationships. By examining a natural non-interactive context, the research advanced our comprehension of the neural mechanisms underlying emotional coordination in romantic relationships, offering novel insights into the emotional dynamics of romantic partnerships.

Paper link: doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2024.120733

(Written by WU Yuyang, edited by HUANG Rui, USTC News Center)