SuperBetter: How a gameful life can make you stronger, happier, braver and more resilient. Jane McGonigal
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competing with each other. It doesn’t matter whether you consider your fellow player a teammate or an opponent. When you play Hedgewars together, your minds and bodies start to operate in near-perfect harmony.
What makes these biological linkages so interesting to researchers? As psychologists have recently discovered, all four types of synchronization—facial expression, heart rate, respiration, and neural activity—are strongly correlated with increased empathy and social bonding. The more we sync up with someone, the more we like them—and the more likely we are to help them in the future.2
It’s not surprising, then, that in surveys conducted afterward, Hedgewars players do indeed report feeling high levels of empathy and connection with each other—again, regardless of whether they played cooperatively or competitively.
Hedgewars, as it turns out, is not special in this regard. In fact, as an expanding field of research shows, any game played simultaneously by two people in the same physical location creates this same kind of “mind meld” and body synchronization—laying the foundation for a more powerful and positive relationship after the game is over.3
How do games trigger a mind-and-body connection so quickly and effectively—and is there anything else you can do to achieve a similar effect? Let’s dig into the science of synchronization to find out.
Humans unconsciously mirror and imitate each other constantly. We fall into lockstep when walking together. We return someone’s smile naturally, without thinking. We shift our body language to match the posture of people we like. And it’s not just a one-on-one phenomenon. At sporting events and concerts, we make the same facial expressions and move in unison with other fans, creating entire crowds of biologically linked individuals.4
Not all synchronization is visibly obvious. Research shows, for example, that a mother’s heartbeat synchronizes with her infant’s when she holds her.5 And when a close friend tells you a story about his day, you experience what scientists call neural coupling. Your brain activity mirrors your friend’s as closely as if it were your own experience he was describing.6 It’s quite amazing when you think about it: your brain processes your friend’s story as if what happened to him had actually happened to you.
Why are these spontaneous biological connections so common? Scientists argue that without them, survival—let alone successful social interaction—would be impossible.
In order to interact with other people, we have to be able to understand them. What are they thinking? What are they feeling? What action are they about to take? Do they want to hurt you or help you? But it’s not easy to read someone else’s mind or guess what they’re feeling. In fact, the only way we can do it is by re-creating their thoughts and feelings in our own minds and bodies.
Consider this example: A stranger is smiling at you. Does he mean you well, or does he mean you harm? You involuntarily smile back—with the same kind of smile he just gave you. Your smile may be fleeting—maybe it lasts just for a microsecond, barely detectable. But now your brain understands the stranger’s intentions. It knows whether the smile you just gave back is the kind of warm, genuine smile you typically give people you intend to be nice to, or a pained, insincere smile you give to people you don’t like. Only by becoming a mirror for someone else are you able to accurately deduce his intentions.
Here’s another example: You run to catch up to someone and start walking beside her. You naturally fall into lockstep, and in doing so, you get important information about her state of mind. Perhaps your stride feels slightly longer and faster than usual—you physically start to feel her sense of urgency. Or perhaps you notice yourself relaxing, walking more slowly than usual. You start to feel the same sense of calm as your partner. By unconsciously mimicking her physical movement, you suddenly have access to her emotions!
We synchronize like this hundreds of times every day without thinking about it. People who do it more tend to score higher on measures of empathy and social intelligence. That’s because the more you mirror and mimic, the better you understand the people around you.
That just leaves one important question to answer: why do we like people better when we mimic and mirror them? It’s not just a matter of better understanding. Countless studies have shown that we become closer to, more affectionate toward, and more likely to help the people we sync up with. Why?
Scientists theorize that syncing up creates an “upward spiral” of positive connection between two people.7 It helps us understand each other better, which means we have smoother social interactions—and that makes us more willing to interact with each other again in the future. When we’re biologically synced up, studies show, we also perform more effectively together, because we’re better able to anticipate each other’s actions. Experiencing success together makes us more likely to help each other in the future. Meanwhile we more naturally like people who we perceive to be like ourselves. So when we unconsciously notice someone else mirroring us, we start to feel more positively about them. And the more positively we feel about someone, the more time we tend to spend with them, giving us more opportunities to sync up and strengthen our bond.
Not all synchronization leads to positive feelings or stronger bonds. If you intuit through a quick neural connection that someone else means you harm, you’re not going to befriend her. And synchronizing around an emotion like anger or frustration can create more stress, not more empathy. Research suggests, for example, that unhappily married couples actually go into downward spirals of synchronization when they argue.8 The more they fight, the more their minds and bodies align—but with negative, rather than positive, emotions. (More happily married couples, on the other hand, are actually less biologically linked during fights. Researchers theorize that they are better able to quickly mirror and process their partner’s negative feelings without having to fully embody them.)
However, syncing up around negative feelings may have at least one benefit. The increased biological connection when some couples fight may explain why so many attest that a good argument can lead to great sex. If you’re synced up, you’re much more in tune with each other’s mind and body. Still, all things considered, the biggest benefits come from syncing up around positive emotions like interest, excitement, curiosity, and wonder—emotions that are extremely common during game play.
Will you notice the next time you’re on a positive upward spiral with someone? Here’s a quest to help you increase your social intelligence right now.
QUEST 8: The Love Detector
When you understand how synchronization works, you spot it happening all around you. It’s almost like developing a sixth sense—you see relationships sparking and connections strengthening right before your eyes.
I want you to think of your new sixth sense as a powerful love detector.
What to do: Look for the telltale sign of deep biological synchronization between two people.
What’s the telltale sign? When two people are feeling positively connected, their body language starts to mirror each other. When one person leans forward, the other leans forward. When one rests her head thoughtfully on her right hand, the other follows suit. When one sits cross-legged, soon the other does as well.
This kind of spontaneous, unconscious mirroring happens in all kinds of situations: over coffee conversations with friends, during work meetings and job interviews, on first dates, and at parties. It’s what happens whenever you feel like you’re really “clicking” with someone.
Why it works: Dr. Barbara Fredrickson, one of the world’s leading researchers of positive emotion, describes these mirror moments as “micro-moments of love.” Whenever our brain activity and biochemistry align, she says, we lay the foundation for future friendship or even intimacy. While love might seem too strong a word to denote these everyday moments, Dr. Fredrickson’s research shows that every time we sync up in a safe and positive context, we are actually feeling