Researchers Discover Irresistible Dance Moves

sciencehabit writes "To find out if certain dance moves are more attractive to women than others, researchers recruited a bunch of college guys and used motion-capture to create avatars of them dancing. When women watched the avatars (2 videos included in story), the men they found most attractive were those who kept their heads and torsos moving without flailing their arms and legs. The researchers say dancing is thus an honest signal to women of the man's strength and health, just as it is in crabs and hummingbirds, who also move in special ways to attract mates."

Comments

Second purpose of my dance

[ciaran_o_riordan]

> without flailing their arms and legs

That's all well and good for impressing the ladies, but how then am I supposed to scare of my competition?

Re:Second purpose of my dance

[TeethWhitener]

If you watch the two videos, the good dancer is moving his arms and legs much more than the bad dancer is. He even starts with the running man! I'm not exactly sure what the quantitative definition of "flailing" is, but the bad dancer definitely isn't flailing if the good dancer isn't.

It'd really be nice to see the rest of the videos. While I think it's a really big leap to go from good dancer to attractive mate, it could be something as simple as the fact that the bad dancer keeps his head down and looks much more defensive and withdrawn than the good dancer. My suspicion is that judging someone to be a good dancer or not has much more to do with the standard body language we already intuitively understand than with any sort of display of strength or fitness. Think about it: you could be the best dancer on earth, but if you're dancing around with your arms crossed in a defensive position, people probably aren't going to be too impressed. On the other hand, if you're dancing with your arms not obstructing your body and you keep your head level but don't really do much else, maybe no one will say you're a great dancer, but I doubt anyone will say you're a bad dancer. I dunno; I just think this study is another case of psychologists trying to prove too much with a limited amount of evidence.

Re:Second purpose of my dance

[Troy]

It's important to remember that flailing != movement. The 2nd guy is moving his arms a lot more, but everything that he does is connected to movement in his torso (either playing out a movement that started in his torso or moving in opposition to it). As a result, his movements look more fluid and "connected" to what he's doing with the rest on his body.

The first guy is a poor example of flailing, because he's hardly moving anything at all. Nevertheless, if the arms aren't working in concert with the torso, then whatever the arms do looks disconnected (and creates a look of flailing).

I think this is part of the "hard to quantify" difference between an expert dancer and a beginner. Beginners are usually replicating what the see, without any understanding of what muscle groups need to be involved in the movement. This makes what they do appear very flat and mechanical. Expert dancers have the experience to know which muscles to engage when, making their movements look dynamic and fluid.

Re:Science!

[gurps_npc]

Common sense is neither common nor sensical. Common sense says that heavier objects fall faster. Common sense says that a son of an islamic black diplomat must be islamic and can't be american. Common sense says that man can't be descended from apes. Science is as much about proving common sense to be wrong as it is about discovering the rare occurences it is correct.

What is love?

[Millennium]

If this article is any indication, it sounds like Will Farrell and Chris Kattan should be the most irresistible men on the planet.

Baby, don't hurt me
Don't hurt me no more

Re:this is /.

[sznupi]

"Kept their heads and torsos moving without flailing their arms and legs" seems useful in adapting our ways to attracting mates, though. Seems like the moves might be quite doable while sitting on a couch.

To

[cptnapalm]

Neave says pilot studies by his group found that asking women who's a good dancer is the same as asking who's attractive.

Does this not undermine their argument? When actual men are involved, it boils down to who is better looking. So how he moves is of little importance as long as the women find him attractive.

Re:To

[Scrameustache]

Neave says pilot studies by his group found that asking women who's a good dancer is the same as asking who's attractive.

Does this not undermine their argument? When actual men are involved, it boils down to who is better looking. So how he moves is of little importance as long as the women find him attractive.

You... you don't actually think that male attractiveness is directly related to physical appearance, do you? That would be very sad, that you'd genuinely know so very little about women. I mean, it's one of the variables involved, but it's far from being the leading factor (the big three are Money, Assertiveness and Muscles, in that order). I've had girls tell me the lead singers of Aerosmith and the Rolling Stones are very attractive, and you know those guys look like road kill, but they are rich and famous, and so they are very attractive.

Also, women seem to believe that how a man dances is a proxy for his sexual prowess. Which I know for a fact to be a false belief because the dance classes I took had a very big impact on how I dance but no impact on how I screw (it had an effect on 'how often', but not on 'how').

Re:To

[Scrameustache]

I think Spock's head would explode if he tried to analyze female 'logic'

I hypothesize that women are instinctually driven to cryptic behavior in order to promote high social intelligence in their mates: They're confusing for the good of the species.

As for the two types of dances shown in TFA, one was a submissive pose (shoulders hunched, head down, slow and predictable centripetal movement), the other was dominant behavior (open stance, chin up, unpredictable high-amplitude movements, isotropic gaze).

Re:To

[cptnapalm]

So ugly, pussy rich guy vs. good looking, assertive poorer guy? Rich dude's wife will be blowing the poor guy in the bathroom.

Our generation and dance

[Anonymous Coward]

My mother asked me why our generation never came up with any dances. Her generation had the Twist, the Mashed Potato, etc.

I replied that Micheal Jackson killed dance. Nobody else could move like him, so we all gave up and just mosh and twitch randomly.

Re:Our generation and dance

[Maxo-Texas]

Real dance isn't choreographed. A good swing dancer is making up the dance to fit the mood and the music as they go along.
The female is constantly being surprised, touched, brushed and it's all part of the dance.

I am not a good swing dancer- at best I got to be average but women like good dancers so I took lessons.

Fortunately, I'm tall, make good money, have muscles, and good dental hygiene.

The last is a lot more important that most guys realize to keeping her once you catch her.

I suspect regular dancers are in better physical condition for sex once they get it.

Re:Our generation and dance

[Scrameustache]

wing dancing is very fun in the sense that you kind of make it up as you go along. However, there are a core set of moves and basics that every dancer must know for the "making stuff up" thing to work (the swing out comes to mind for example).

Dancing is like programming, there's a few basic moves and techniques you have to learn, and then you make of them what you can.
Dancing is NOT like programming in that the more you dance, the healthier you get. ;-)

Re:that picture!

[kg8484]

That is moshgirl. Old meme is old.

An another assumption of universality...

[JoshuaZ]

This sort of study might be interesting but it seems clear that the article and one of the quoted anthropologists are assuming that this is a human universal or close to that. But this study was done in a single country with a small group of people. Without a lot more detail it isn't possible to tell if this is an ingrained preference or is culturally driven. Overarching conclusions from interesting but not broad studies like this give ev psych and anthropology a bad name.

Re:An another assumption of universality...

[PatrickThomson]

Claiming that research done with realistic budget limitations shames us all is asinine bullshit. You have this result, or you have nothing. This is intriguing, perhaps it merits further study, perhaps behavioural psychologists in other nations will study the locals there. Perhaps not. The only overarching conclusions were written by the five word headline, or by your own built-in summariser.

Wrong question

[Carewolf]

What they have established is who is considered a better dancer. I doubt anyone finds a blue figure "attractive" so they a judging who is the better dancer.

In real life the guy who moves the least is considered more attractive but a poor dancer. The reason is that the less you can get away with moving while dancing the more it will look like the girl is dancing "for you" and not "with you", demonstrating you have values worth fighting for even if you are a terrible dancer.

Re:Science!

[operagost]

Common sense says that a son of an islamic black diplomat must be islamic and can't be american.

Huh? Common sense isn't supposed to be illogical.

Common sense says that heavier objects fall faster.

It depends on whether your commoner uses Newtonian or quantum physics.

Re:Porn

[Geeky]

Imagine for a second that you're a woman getting drilled away by a perfect mate, how much of that guy are you going to see? Pretty much just his torso, head, and arms, right? That would explain why the legs are unimportant in teh decision making process.

Depends what position you're doing it in. Sometimes you'd see nothing. Except maybe the pillow.