Perception of affect attunement by adolescents

Affect attunement is a process in which two individuals mutually create, match and share their affective states. The purposes of this study were to examine whether adolescents perceive affect attunement in others, and whether this perception is related to gender. Adolescents (n = 116, ages 15 to 18 years; 59% female, 41% male) were presented slides of dyads exhibiting different levels of affect attunement and made judgements as to the presence or absence of affect attunement. The results revealed that adolescents do perceive and discriminate different levels of affect attunement in others and that females appear to be better than males.