found online by Raymond
From The Journal of Improbable Research:
In 2007 (or thereabouts) researchers from Colby College, US, the University of Connecticut, US and the College of the Holy Cross, US, jointly came up with the ‘Rocking Chair Paradigm’.
The paradigm provided a new method to investigate whether, in some situations, people are prone to (consciously or unconsciously ) synchronize their movements with each other. The paradigm differs from previous methodologies (e.g. using swinging pendulums*) in that the experimental participants don’t have to be instructed to oscillate – they like doing it, and so they do it anyway.