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Travelling groups stick together: How collective directional movement influences social cohesion

Wilson, Stuart, Bassiou, Evangelina, Denli, Aysel, Dolan, Lynsey and Watson, Matthew (2018) Travelling groups stick together: How collective directional movement influences social cohesion. Evolutionary Psychology, 16 (3). ISSN 1474-7049

Item Type: Article

Abstract

We tested the hypothesis that the social act of moving through space with others – collective directional movement – is associated with greater levels of group cohesion compared to static activities. We asked participants to imagine participating in activities as part of a same-sex group and found that imagining going on a journey is associated with higher levels of expected cohesion compared to imagining attending a meeting (Study 1) or an event (Study 2). Study 3 replicates the main effect using different manipulations and finds that it persists regardless of whether the imagined group were friends or strangers. Two further studies employed real-world tasks and show that the effect is not a consequence of goal-ascription (Study 4) or synchrony/exertion (Study 5).We argue that the link between this activity and cohesion is a consequence of its ubiquity in social ecologies and the interdependence and shared common fate of those engaged in it.

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More Information

Uncontrolled Keywords: group cohesion, travel psychology, behavioral synchrony, collective movements, directional movement
Depositing User: Matthew Watson

Identifiers

Item ID: 9896
Identification Number: https://doi.org/10.1177/1474704918792134
ISSN: 1474-7049
URI: http://sure.sunderland.ac.uk/id/eprint/9896
Official URL: http://journals.sagepub.com/home/evp

Users with ORCIDS

ORCID for Stuart Wilson: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-2119-5209

Catalogue record

Date Deposited: 22 Aug 2018 09:42
Last Modified: 20 May 2019 11:47

Contributors

Author: Stuart Wilson ORCID iD
Author: Evangelina Bassiou
Author: Aysel Denli
Author: Lynsey Dolan
Author: Matthew Watson

University Divisions

Faculty of Health Sciences and Wellbeing

Subjects

Psychology > Social Psychology
Psychology

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