The model breaks alignment into five mechanisms and highlights two big factors that steer them: what participants want to achieve together and the specific form alignment takes. Thinking about mechanisms side by side reveals how automatic tendencies, intentional strategies, social motives, and cognitive constraints can combine differently across situations. For anyone designing educational tools, communication training, or inclusive workplaces, this approach gives a clearer language for diagnosing why conversations succeed or stall and how subtle adjustments could improve outcomes.
If you care about human potential, the promise here is practical and generative. The framework points to testable ways of improving learning environments, making digital assistants more supportive, and designing meetings where quieter voices are amplified. Follow the link to explore the full account, see the examples the authors use, and imagine how these interacting mechanisms could be harnessed to help groups communicate more clearly and equitably.
Abstract
Conversational alignment, also known as accommodation, entrainment, interpersonal synchrony, and convergence, is defined as the tendency for interlocutors to exhibit similarity in their communicative behaviors. There have been many theories and explanations set forth as to why alignment occurs and, accordingly, the mechanisms that underlie it. To date, however, alignment research has been largely siloed, with different research teams often examining alignment through the lens of a single theoretical account. Considering causal mechanisms in tandem offers a more holistic and nuanced understanding of the dynamic nature of alignment, its purposes, and its consequences. Accordingly, we propose the Mechanistic Framework of Alignment (MFA), a qualitative conceptual model that integrates existing theories of conversational alignment into one unified framework. To explain this framework, we first review five alignment mechanisms, discussing the underlying assumptions, contributions, and supporting evidence for each. We then introduce two overarching factors—conversational goal and alignment type—that are critical for understanding when and how these mechanisms give rise to aligned behavior. Illustrative examples demonstrate how the relative weightings of each mechanism interact with these contextual variables. Finally, we conclude with directions for how future research can extend and refine this framework and how the MFA can support future work in this area.
