Everybody on the Dance Floor!

Dance like the world is not watching you! All of us have heard this at least once in our lives and have also danced like the world wasn’t watching us. Professional dancers move so gracefully that they can move you to tears. Other (non-professional) persons with a deep passion for dance may move you to tears of a different kind. Well, what if I (informed by research studies) told you that dance is also a mode of communication? That dance, like language, transmits information from one person to another.

Here, I would like to introduce Dr. Peter Lovatt, also known as “Doctor Dance.” Dr. Lovatt is a dance psychologist, and a professional dancer, who runs the Dance Psychology Lab at the University of Hertfordshire. A Dance Psychology Lab! Isn’t that interesting? So what does a dance psychologist do? We have heard that dance soothes and that it can be used as therapy, but what could a dance psychologist possibly do? Well, as is written on Dr. Lovatt’s website, “Dance psychologists are interested in understanding how people communicate through dance and body movements.” They study emotions associated with each body movement, and also how stories are understood through dance.

Now let me take you through some of the interesting findings of Doctor Dance, which will help you understand why dance is a mode of communication. Dr. Lovatt has been studying how dance affects one’s self esteem (Lovatt, 2011), how dance is related to thinking (mainly convergent and divergent thinking; Lewis & Lovatt, 2013; Lovatt, 2013) and also how dance can affect the moods of those with Parkinson’s disease (Lewis, Annett, Davenport, Hall, & Lovatt, 2014). But his findings about dance and hormones were the most intriguing. He found that women who are in the fertile period of their cycle dance moving only their hips when compared with women not in their fertile period.

When men were asked to rate the level of attractiveness of various women dancing, they tended to rate women dancing only with their hips to be more attractive than women who danced with their whole body. To validate this further, he observed how women dance at various stages of their cycle, and found that the same woman dances differently in her fertile period and in her low fertile period. On the other hand, he also found that men who dance more vigorously, are the men who have high levels of testosterone in their body. These men are also rated more attractive by women when compared to men who don’t dance vigorously. What does this tell us? That we are biologically driven to dance and that the way one dances describes biological and genetic make-up. It can be seen as a way of communicating to the opposite sex. If you think about it from an evolutionary perspective, it helped women spot men who were high on testosterone to perpetuate their genes and vice versa.

 Dance is also used as a form of therapy known as dance movement therapy. This is based on the assumption that the body, mind, and spirit are interconnected and uses dance movement for the emotional, cognitive, and physical integration of an individual.

So, these studies on dancing suggest that the way we dance maybe a form of expression of our hormonal level. We may also be able to infer that dancing comes naturally to us. So, the next time you are in a club, don’t hesitate to shake a leg!

Suggested Readings:

Mood changes following social dance sessions in people with Parkinson’s disease.

The power of dance across behavior and thinking.

Dance, Thinking and Hormones

Dance and Psychology

Sharanya  Venugopal

Keeping you in the dark: The psychology of self-deception

Have you ever told yourself you are better than others just to feel more confident? Or convinced yourself that you’d work harder even though you know you won’t? Most of us have lied to ourselves at some point in our lives. Most forms of psychotherapy seek to decrease self-deception so that clients are well adjusted, have valid information of themselves, and are in touch with reality. Influential psychologists such as Sigmund Freud, Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow, Aaron Beck and others have emphasized the importance of realistic views about the self. So why do we keep ourselves in the dark? Research has focused on the various ill effects of self-deception. For example, the planning fallacy, which refers to our tendency to underestimate the time taken to complete a task (Buehler, Griffin, & Ross, 1994) could lead to procrastination, thereby, resulting in stress and poor quality work (Tice & Baumeister, 1997). 

Even though we know self-deception is harmful, we continue to do it. This concurs with a contrasting view that self-deception is an important defence mechanism that protects us from threatening information or circumstances (Trivers, 2010). Researchers have found that people who have positive illusions about themselves are less likely to be depressed and have positive self-esteem (Taylor & Brown, 1988). Evolutionary psychologists propose that humans are good at deceiving themselves and that self-deception is adaptive. 

Self-deception has been regarded as an unconscious process because, it would be almost impossible for the self to be a deceiver if it consciously knows that it is being deceived (von Hippel & Trivers, 2011). Trivers (2010, p. 373) has defined self-deception as “hiding true information from the conscious mind in the unconscious.” If self-deception involves hiding facts, then how do researchers study this phenomenon? Further, how is self-deception detected? Some indicators include nervousness, and control, rather over-control, of the face, and body muscles (DePaulo et al. 2003). Self-deception can also be checked using questionnaires, like the Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding (BIDR) developed by Paulhus (1988). Here, items represent exaggerated positive characteristics about the self. For instance, one such item is “I never lie.” The higher individuals rate the item as personally relevant, the more likely they are to be representing a favourable image of themselves to others. After all, although everyone lies, lying itself is negative.

Even though normal individuals engage in self-deception, it has also been associated with psychopathology and neuropsychological disorders. One such neurological disorder, known as Anosognosia (Babinski, 1914) is a self-deceptive disorder where patients have physical injuries but deny them (Bayne & Fernandez, 2010). Ramachandran (2009) described an anosognistic patient who denied that her left arm was paralyzed and believed that her lifeless arm belonged to her father who was “hiding under the table.”

I remember telling myself that I would stop eating junk food. I wrote it in my diary and told my closest friends so that I would be committed to my resolution. Unfortunately, I cannot say that my diet has been very healthy. I remember how I always had some self-validated reason for eating junk, or would trivialize how much I actually ate. Deceiving myself let me do what I wanted without feeling guilty about it. Self-deception is an important coping mechanism to the extent that it does not always result in extreme distortions of reality. Given that about 40% and above individuals engage in self-deception (Svenson, 1981; Baumeister, 2010), we are faced with the glaring truth of how we lie to ourselves about lying to ourselves!

    Sharlene Fernandes

The Wind Howls; The Mountain Remains Still

“There once was a boy so quiet and shy, he used to run home from school when the bell rang, to avoid socializing with his classmates. Like many shy people, this boy sided instinctively with the oppressed. As he grew older, he learned to speak out on their behalf—but remained a shy and quiet man, believing that these traits were his source of spiritual strength. The boy’s name was Mohandas Gandhi, and he later uttered, for me, the most important sentence in history: In a gentle way, you can shake the world.”

This excerpt from Susan Cain’s recent TED Talk, The Quiet Revolution (2014), recapitulates that the tendency to be reserved and reflective is associated with many people who bring extraordinary talents and abilities to the world.

Our lives are shaped as much by our personalities as by culture, religion, or gender. How we interact with people, our choices in relationships or careers; how we bounce back and learn from our mistakes depends a great deal on where we fall on the introversion-extroversion continuum. In her book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, Cain (2012) speaks about how Introversion is different from being shy. While shyness is the fear of social judgment, introversion is a preference for an environment with less stimulation.  

According to Jung (1971), introverts are drawn to the inner world of thought and feeling, while extroverts toward the external life of people and activities. Extroverts crave large amounts of stimulation but introverts feel their best when they are in quieter environments where they can concentrate, most of the time.

Nowadays, when being social and outgoing is prized above all else, being an introvert can be difficult. According to Cain (2012), “Introverts living under the ‘Extrovert Ideal’ are like women living in man’s world discounted because of a trait that goes to the core of who they are.” In India, a culture with strong family values and large social gatherings, people are often expected to socialize and open up to extended family members which can be very daunting. Many times, an introvert’s quietude is perceived as impolite or lacking respect. Others may mistake silence for ignorance or even insolence. Yoon (2014) says “Introverts listen more than they talk, think before they speak, and focus on relationships. Introverts focus on the meaning of events around us, while extroverts focus on the events themselves.”

Research shows that extroverted leaders are better at leading passive employees because they are able to motivate and inspire them. Introverted leaders however are better at leading proactive employees as they tend to listen more carefully, making them more effective leaders of vocal teams. They are more open to suggestions which makes their employees feel valued, encouraging them to work harder (Grant, Gino & Hoffman, 2010).

Introverts have much to offer at the workplace, yet they are often uneasy in this gregarious and structured environment with a lack of privacy hampering their productivity. The dominant, assertive, and rarely speechless get ahead, while the pensive and inaudibly knowledgeable tend to not get a word in edgewise. In order to cope, many mask their introversion to blend in and circumvent the ‘shy’ or ‘antisocial’ labels (Ronson, 2012).

Introverts however are very valuable to organizations as they often provide a different perspective along with innovative and creative solutions. Unlike extroverts, they spend more time prudently thinking about and analyzing problems before deciphering them. Along with their attention to detail, they are also more persistent and give up less easily. Cain exemplified this in her book through Einstein’s words: “It’s not that I’m so smart. It’s that I stay with problems longer,” (Cain, 2012).

Introverts need to recognize their uniqueness and where they can shine. After all “the secret to life is to put yourself in the right lighting. For some, it’s a Broadway spotlight; for others, a lamp lit desk,” (Cain, 2012).

 Nikita D'Souza