Smiling together: Facial synchrony predicts distress relief.

Facial synchrony, the alignment of emotional expressions during interactions, is well researched, yet its role in emotion regulation remains unclear. Here, we investigated whether smile synchrony could serve as a pathway for emotional relief during real-life emotional sharing. Using automated facial expression analysis platform, we analyzed video recordings of 64 dyads (128 participants from multicultural backgrounds), in which one member (the target) shared an emotional event with their interaction partner. We predicted that smile synchrony would predict the targets' distress relief in the distressing condition (but not in a control nondistressing condition). The analysis of smile synchrony dynamics showed that while levels of smile synchrony were similar in the distressing and the nondistressing conditions, smile synchrony significantly predicted reduced sadness levels in targets only in the distressing condition. Moreover, leader-follower analysis revealed that the effect of smile synchrony on distress is evident both when the synchrony was initiated by the target and their interaction partner. Our results suggest a unique role for smiling synchrony during two-person distress regulation, highlighting its potential as a channel for alleviating sadness in emotionally charged interactions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).