Young women were shown 15-second clips of dancing avatars and asked to judge which dance moves were the most attractive in a new study.
Credit: iStockPhoto
PARIS: Men who wish to attract women on the disco floor would be better advised to learn a few moves that answer the female mating drive rather than bother with the moonwalk.
Psychologists have identified the key male dance movements that most arouse female interest - and all are to do with central body motions which send out primal signals of health, vigour and strength.
A team led by Nick Neave of Northumbria University, north-eastern England, filmed 19 men aged 18-35 in a lab as they danced to a standard disco beat.
Dancing avatars judged on attractiveness
The men, none of whom was a professional dancer, wore reflective markers that studded their body and were filmed by a battery of 12 3D cameras.
The footage was used to create a dancing avatar, or animated figure, that was faceless and genderless.
Thirty-seven young heterosexual women were then shown 15-second clips of the avatars and were asked to judge which dance movements were the most attractive.
Stiff and plod not ideal
Eight 'movement variables' emerged which distinguished the trolls from the Travoltas.
'Good' dancers did wider and bigger movements of the head, neck and torso, and did faster bending and twisting movements of their right knee (greater movements of the right knee rather than the left were to be expected, as 80% of the dancers favoured their right leg).
In contrast, 'bad' dancers tended to be stiff and plod - and throwing their arms around was no substitute for fast, variable movement of the central body region. (Watch both clips at the end of the article.)
Determining the winning moves
"Men all over the world will be interested to know what moves they can throw to attract women," said Neave.
"We now know which area of the body females are looking at when they are making a judgement about male dance attractiveness.
If a man knows what the key moves are, he can get some training and improve his chances of attracting a female through his dance style."
Faceless dancers break new ground
The study was published in Biology Letters, a journal of the Royal Society, which is Britain's de-facto academy of science.
Neave said the experiment broke new ground because of the neutrality of the avatars, which gave no cues to the man's face or clothing that could sway judgement.
Dancer Confidence
A main difference between the 'good' and 'bad' dance moves appears to be confidence. The 'good' moves involve larger arm movements and upright stance display this self confidence in the dancer compared to the 'bad' dance moves which are smaller, less dramatic and appear to 'keep to themselves' displaying less self confidence.