Friday, December 23, 2005
Sexy Dance
Good dancers are hot; this everyone knows. A new study has been able to relate dancing ability to being an attractive mate in and of itself. They filmed kids dancing and, by measuring their movements, turned them in to animated stick figures, whose skill on the dancefloor were then rated by others. The skill levels were then related to physical attractiveness scores (such as body symmetry, which suggests developmental health). They found that better dancers also tended to have higher body symmetry.
Now, as cool as that is, there are so many potential confounds here. The biggest one that springs to my mind is how people learn to dance: it's entirely social. Ugly kids (i.e., those with asymmetrical bodies, perhaps) don't tend to get asked to dance, and may not learn to do it as well as the attractive ones. On the other hand, they may also try to compensate by practicing every day and getting really good. I'd love to read the whole article, and probably also to see a larger sample.
Now, as cool as that is, there are so many potential confounds here. The biggest one that springs to my mind is how people learn to dance: it's entirely social. Ugly kids (i.e., those with asymmetrical bodies, perhaps) don't tend to get asked to dance, and may not learn to do it as well as the attractive ones. On the other hand, they may also try to compensate by practicing every day and getting really good. I'd love to read the whole article, and probably also to see a larger sample.
