Specificity of Affect in Affective Synchrony in Parent-Adolescent Dyads

We investigated affective synchrony in observed affect in 217 parent-adolescent dyads. Correlations and Fisher’s z-transformations were used to compare magnitude of associations for corresponding vs. noncorresponding affect. Synchrony was significantly greater for corresponding affect (e.g., sadness with sadness) than different affect (e.g., sadness with hostility) in parents and adolescents.