Dr Peter Lovatt is head of the University of Hertfordshire's Dance Psychology Lab.Dr Peter Lovatt has been head of the Dance Psychology Lab at the University of Hertfordshire since founding it in 2008. Prior to this he trained in ballet, tap and jazz, and worked as a professional dancer. Last summer he wrote, produced and performed in Dance, Doctor, Dance! The Psychology of Dance Show as part of the Edinburgh festival fringe. In March he gave a talk at TEDx Observer.
How can dance change the way people think?
We've had people in the lab dancing and then doing problem-solving – and different sorts of dancing help them with different sorts of problem- solving. We know that when people engage in improvised kinds of dance it helps them with divergent thinking – where there's multiple answers to a problem. Whereas when they engage in very structured dance it helps their convergent thinking – trying to find the single answer to a problem.
You've been studying the effects of dance on people with Parkinson's disease…
Yes, we know as Parkinson's disease develops it can lead to a disruption of the divergent thinking processes. So we thought if we used improvised dance with a PD group we might see an improvement in their divergent thinking skills, and that was exactly what we did see.
Next we would like to study what it is about dancing as an intervention that has as impact on neural processing. One possibility is that when they dance they are developing new neural pathways to get around dopamine-depleted blockages.
Watch Peter Lovatt's talk at the Observer's TEDx event earlier this year.How else can dance change how we think?
There have been several papers looking at the self-esteem of ballet dancers in training – and what they've found is that girls in their mid-teens have significantly lower self-esteem than non-ballet-dancing girls. There are two explanations for this. One would be that girls with low self-esteem choose classical ballet because the struggle for perfection reinforces their poor self-image. Another theory says that ballet training subculture can be very detrimental to a young girl's self-esteem because they are constantly being told they are not doing it right and that the body shape issue is very important in classical ballet.
Which explanation do you think is correct?
We are trying to test these two hypotheses in the lab by comparing data from 600 dancers in different dance groups. So we're looking at things like comparing classical ballet dancers with Indian classical dancers – the latter don't have to wear tight-fitting clothing in training. We're also comparing them with burlesque dancers who are very happy to show a fuller body. If it's the case that girls with low self-esteem choose ballet there's not a great deal we can do about that. But if the classical ballet subculture might lead to eating disorders and self-harm then that's something very important we should be flagging up.
Is there a dance style that is good for self-esteem?
Anything where there's a high degree of tolerance for not getting it right. Things such as ceilidh dancing people smile, laugh and giggle, and they are adults and it's absolutely fine. It's wonderful. There have also been studies that have found that dancing in baggy "jazz" clothing is better than tight-fitting clothing for the dancer's self-esteem.
Is it correct that women think men whose ears are the same size are better dancers?
It sounds like nonsense but a study by Brown et al found that physically symmetrical men were rated better dancers by women. A second study by Fink et al focused on men's fingers. They measured the 2D-4D ratio – the relative length of the second and fourth digit, an indicator to exposure to prenatal testosterone. He found that those men with a high degree of prenatal testosterone exposure were again rated as more attractive and masculine dancers.
You've built on this research?
I went to a nightclub where we offered people free entry if they took part in the study. Wemeasured fingers, their ears, their fertility, where the women were in their menstrual cycle, their relationship status, whether they were looking for a mate. And our findings were very similar. Those men with high 2D-4D ratio were rated as more attractive dancers. We also found something unique: the women signalled their degree of fertility through their body movement by isolating and moving their hips, which made men find them more attractive.
So is their a causal link between factors such as symmetry or hip-movement and being an attractive dancer?
Some people, such as Brown and Fink, argue that your hormonal and genetic make-up is being signalled by the way you dance. They posit a direct link. But it might not be that at all: imagine you are a really beautiful person so whenever you go out to a club, everyone looks at you and that fills with you with confidence – that might be what makes you dance in an attractive way that people find even more attractive. There might be a link, it could be an association though behaviours that makes you more confident.
So female performers in pop videos dance as if they were at the most fertile point of their cycle?
Yes, they do. There are often lots of images of women's hips moving in isolation. Often it's not the most attractive form of dancing – it's an artificial enhancement. What's interesting is that people who look at these women and tell us why they find them attractive never say: "I just spent the last three minutes looking at her hip region", which is what our data suggest they are doing. Rather, they find all kinds of other reasons to justify what they think.
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