Five Minutes to Love: Self-Disclosure and Attraction Affect Physiological Synchrony in a Dating Event

This study manipulated self-disclosure in a series of real-world speed-dating events and monitored the moment-by-moment evolution of participants' skin conductance responses throughout 505 five-minute first-time encounters. Both disclosure condition and mutual attractiveness separately affected emotional arousal and physiological synchrony with attractiveness impacting arousal primarily at the beginning of the date, and disclosure taking effect later in the encounter. Specifically, for the highly attracted couples, we observed increases in arousal during the first three minutes of the date, and increased synchrony during the first minute. Both effects of attractiveness faded away as the romantic date progressed. In contrast, self-disclosure followed a distinct temporal pattern with increased arousal becoming evident halfway through the encounter, and physiological synchrony forming in the final minute of high- versus low disclosure dates. These findings suggest that mutual attraction initially drives excitement and emotional alignment, while reciprocal self-disclosure gradually takes over and becomes the main factor determining arousal and synchrony. Our results are a step forward in understanding the complexity and dynamics of initial romantic interactions and highlight the value of incorporating physiological measures in survey-dominant relationship research.