"Attention please!": The dark side of dancers’ personality

Abstract

The present study aims to investigate the dark side of dancers’ personality. In recent literature, dark personality traits were conceptualized as the Dark Tetrad which includes Machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy and sadism. The participants in this study were 98 dancers, aged between 18 and 57 (M = 34.71, SD = 11.21; 86.7% women), who practiced different dance types (classical ballet, modern dance, flamenco, oriental dance, hip-hop, salsa, tango, merengue, bachata and Latin dances-samba, rumba) both professionally and non-professionally. They answered 13 questions from the pilot version of the list of Indicators of the meaning of dance for dancers, the Short Dark Triad (SD3) and the Assessment of Sadistic Personality (ASP). The results have shown that dancers had higher scores narcissism and lower scores on Machiavellianism and sadism compared to participants from the reference community sample from previous study (Dinić et al., 2018, 2020). Professional dancers had higher scores on narcissism, compared to those who practice dance as recreation meaning that they tend to seek prestige or status and have a need for admiration and attention from other people more than recreationists. Furthermore, a series of regression analyses showed that psychopathy is negatively related to dancers’ evaluation of the dance as an enjoyable and pleasant activity. It is concluded that dark personality traits are a component of dancers’ personality and one of the factors that affect dancers’ evaluation of the meaning of dance. Moreover, practical implications of the obtained results related to the pedagogical dance practice are discussed, as well as the dark traits of creative personality.

Dance as a Medium of Communication - Psychological and Social Aspects

“…Human body is the basic instrument of dance since the dancer communicates with others using his/her movements. As previous studies have shown, dance has a great potential to be a medium of communication of various feelings, needs, ideas, intentions, concepts and bodily sensations (Christensen, et al, 2017;Džadžević, 2005;Hanna, 1995;Maletić, 1986;Vukadinović, 2013Vukadinović, , 2022Vukadinović & Marković, 2017, 2022. By dancing spontaneously, people can communicate the widest range of their feelings and states expressing them with body movements.…”

“…It is a system of organized and formalized movements which the artist consciously expresses and deliberately conveys to the observer (see more in: Blom & Chaplin, 2000;Carter, 1998;Džadžević, 2005;Jowit, 1994;Layson, 1994;Meekums, 2005;Tufnel & Crickmay, 2006;Vukadinović, 2019). In search for understanding the motivation for dancing, various authors have addressed the question of why people dance or what drives them to perform this universal human activity (Christensen, Cela-Conde, & Gomila, 2017;Lovatt, 2016Lovatt, , 2018Maletić, 1986;Maraz, Király, Urbán, Griffiths & Demetrovics, 2015, Vukadinović, 2019, 2022. Many answers to these questions have been given from the standpoint of different approaches and from various perspectives including psychological, historical, anthropological, sociological, evolutionary, cultural, artistic, neurobiological and medical ones.…”

“…The second is mostly psychological and it includes the need for creative self-expression, aesthetic experience, for the symbolic transformation of experiences, for improving mood and self-confidence, for escaping from reality, as well as the need to gather in a community by socializing and establish intimacy with other people (c.f. Vukadinović, 2019Vukadinović, , 2022. Considering all these motivators and potentials of dance, the feelings it can produce, as well as the changes it can bring, it is very widely used in many areas as a medium (c.f.…”

“…Another neural mechanism refers to the stimulation of specific receptors in the skin that are activated during "social touch", hugs and movement while dancing in pairs. Furthermore, along with other topics, in our earlier study we have explored what dance means for both professional dancers and those who practice dance as recreation (Vukadinović, 2022). The study included fewer professionals than those for whom it is a hobby or recreation.…”

“…Generally speaking, the results have shown that the possibility to express themselves and socialize with others plays an important role for them (c.f. Vukadinović, 2022). It has also been shown that for those who practice dance as recreation, dance is not just a way of socialization, but it is also a way of seduction and the expression of their sexuality.…”