Male movements serve as courtship signals in many animal species, and may honestly reflect the genotypic and/or phenotypic quality of the individual. Attractive human dance moves, particularly those of males, have been reported to show associations with measures of physical strength, prenatal androgenization and symmetry.
The study builds on previous research that found women judge the dance movements of stronger men as more attractive and more assertive, and that risk-taking men also get pegged as better dancers. The new research suggests that the information conveyed by dance is even broader, according to study researcher Bernard Fink, of the University of Göttingen, in Germany. "We argue that personality is — to some extent — signaled via body movement (dance in particular, as it is the most complex body movement)," Fink wrote in an email to LiveScience.
Fink and his colleagues had previously found that ladies love certain dudely dance moves, including fast right-knee movements and a variation of movements in the neck and the torso. The findings that women seem able to pick up on factors like strength and risk-taking from watching just a few seconds of dance moves prompted the researchers to look at other personality traits. They focused on the "Big Five" traits, five basic attributes that describe the spectrum of human personality.
Those traits are openness (a willingness to explore new things), conscientiousness (a tendency toward self-discipline), extroversion (social exuberance), agreeableness (compassion and care for others) and neuroticism (a tendency to experience negative emotions). ...put together with old findings, he said, the new study suggests that women are sensitive to discerning personality traits that would be important for both short-term and long-term relationships. "The significant correlations of conscientiousness and social agreeableness suggest that dance movements signal particularly aspects of 'long-term' partner qualities," Fink said.
Of course, the research hasn't yet established how, if at all, women use judgments of dance quality to decide whether to pursue a potential mate. Future studies will need to ask women to watch men's dance moves and then decide whether the guy would make a good long- or short-term partner, Fink said. He and his colleagues are also interested in turning the tables to find out what sort of information female dance moves might communicate.
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