Why is Team Building Important?

Performing synchronised activities helps individuals to bond better as a team, research indicates.

The latest issue of Psychological Science reports the findings of researchers from Stanford University.

Scientists asked two groups of people to walk - the first group in time with one another, the second group asynchronously.

They were then asked to take part in an economics game in which greater cooperation leads to greater financial pay-off.

Researchers report that those who had walked in step were more likely to feel as though they were working as a team.

In practice, this resulted in them being more willing to sacrifice their individual earnings in order to boost the amount won by all players combined.

Conversely, those who had walked out of step with each other were less likely to make decisions which benefited the group as a whole.

However, this resulted in them winning less on an individual basis on average than the synchronised group.

The researchers argue that their findings compare with synchronous activity such as armies training by marching or the singing of national anthems at major sporting events.

Publisher of the journal the Association for Psychological Science claims that the frequency with which its articles are cited places the publication in the top ten psychology periodicals worldwide.