Study Reveals Impact of Relationship Quality on Emotional Synchronization in Couples

A recent study conducted by researchers from the University of Science and Technology of China has provided new insights into how the quality of romantic relationships affects emotional synchronization among couples. The findings, published in the journal NeuroImage, indicate that couples experience greater emotional and neural synchronization compared to close friends, particularly when the quality of their relationship is low.

Emotions play a critical role in social interactions, especially within romantic partnerships. Previous research has explored various aspects of neural activity in these relationships, but the specific relationship between emotional synchronization and relationship quality has not been extensively studied.

The research team, led by Prof. Zhang Xiaochu and Researcher Wei Zhengde, aimed to fill this gap by comparing emotional coordination between 25 pairs of heterosexual couples and 25 pairs of heterosexual friends. Using EEG-hyperscanning technology during a non-interactive video-watching session, the researchers recorded the brain signals of participants as they viewed emotionally charged videos designed to elicit six fundamental emotions: happiness, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, and surprise.

Participants' emotional reactions were assessed through questionnaires and the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM) rating method. The study revealed that couples demonstrated significantly higher levels of behavioral and prefrontal alpha synchronization than friends during the emotional video-watching task, highlighting their ability to understand and interpret each other's emotional states effectively.

Moreover, the quality of the relationship played a crucial role in this synchronization. Couples with lower relationship quality exhibited a need for increased neural synchronization to maintain effective behavioral synchronization. The study identified a negative correlation between relationship quality and neural synchronization, leading to the categorization of couples into high-quality and low-quality groups for further analysis.

This research sheds light on how the inherent emotions tied to relationship quality influence both neural and behavioral synchronization in romantic partnerships. By investigating this within a natural non-interactive context, the study enhances our understanding of the neural mechanisms that underlie emotional coordination in romantic relationships, offering valuable insights into the emotional dynamics that characterize these partnerships.