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."

Re:Science!

[Anonymous Coward]

In the face of real science, so-called common sense is often wrong.

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.

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.

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.

Hardware or software?

[gmuslera]

How much of that is in our genes vs how much is in fact cultural? The dance of 500, 1000 or 10000 years ago was probably considered irresistible at their own time and boring now.

Probably is just culture what makes things (dance moves, clothing, hair styles or whatever) irresistible or not. Maybe is not just physical fitness what is being seen there, but also ability to perform or create a meme. "Functional" attractiveness of the opposite sex has changed with culture too

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: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: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.

Re:Science!

[drsmack1]

It is hard to believe that your post was modded as "insightful". It is funny how you seem to equate two beliefs commonly attributed to the Christian right with what the society at large considers "common sense". Obviously you do this to bolster your point.

I think you can do better.

If your point is that science regularly proves the beliefs of religious people to be incorrect - I agree. However, saying that without context or qualification is no different in terms of results than an outright lie.

Science also regularly proves that many of the beliefs of liberals, non-liberals, conservatives, faux conservatives, and flightless birds are incorrect.

Intellectual honesty much?

We Did

[w8dm4n]

"Our" generation did innovate our own dance. It's called West Coast Swing, and it's danced to top 40 music, hip-hop, blues, soul, and generally anything with 4/4 timing. There are dance parties and events across the US. Innovation, creativity, and technique are all important. The dance is currently evolving.

These two are 27 years old, and are the current innovators. Not Choreographed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGP8CEklpGg [youtube.com]

Again, not choreographed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkcHzqr8a34 [youtube.com]

Yes, these are professional West Coast dancers that compete in a circuit 30 weeks a year or so.

-Rick

Of course, there's another interpretation...

[blair1q]

It could just mean that the guys who used more legs and arms were just exposing their #fail more than the ones who didn't.

If you did this same test with professional dancers, how would it come out?

tensor loops

[epine]

What women want degenerates into a common knowledge problem. Just read this thread, it illustrates what any sensible woman already knows: the incredible male fascination with easy ways to get laid without doing any real emotional work.

Even if the ruse works, you'll likely end up with the kind of chick who is easily duped by a shallow ruse. The pussy might be good in the short term, but soon you'll have to gnaw your arm off.

To really understand what women want involves tensor calculus: it's a varying function of what the women currently has. The tensor system has fairly strong immunity to fixed points. It tends to loop through sex, babies, parenthood, graduation, sex, babies, parenthood, etc.

As soon as you achieve one of these, your emotions migrate to the next stage. There's no gloriously horny fixed point.

Sometimes you find a woman who is so disillusioned with life, she gets off the bus. She's often found in the company of a man who is sexually exhausted (beyond caring), and disillusioned with disillusioned. Who knew that caring about life makes a woman more attractive?

The other term that confuses matters is that a women evaluates what she knows about you differently than what you've stated about yourself explicitly, even if these are the same thing. This tends to happen when a woman consciously knows better, but subconsciously continues to hope.

That's where real emotional work enters the picture. To have any real success with women, you have to be able to navigate the simultaneous equations. Sometimes you wander into a cul de sac, where there's no solution at all. Then you have to jump bravely from one ledge to another. This involves the use of that other male bone, the backbone. Anakin Skywalker is not your role model.

If the relationship has any emotional equity, the backbone move is termed "conflict resolution". Many relationships suck at this. A quick test for sucking at conflict resolution is when your typical relationship goes directly from great sex to Armageddon.

These days, for people who live in urban areas, there are a lot of fish in the sea. Nevertheless, the Armageddon cycles eventually build up, until you find yourself sitting around in your underwear watching Seinfeld reruns.

And you still don't know what women want.