The evolutionary role of dance: Group bonding but not prosocial altruism.

Abstract

That synchronized activities like dancing or marching positively influence social bonding has been widely demonstrated for both dyads and small groups. However, previous studies of other social bonding behaviors (laughter and behavioral synchrony) have suggested that these prosocial effects do not extend to altruistic actions (generosity in economic games), implying that social bonding and prosociality may be underpinned by different psychological processes. Here, we ask whether dancing to music in a naturalistic (i.e., nonlaboratory) context makes people feel more socially bonded and/or more altruistic (in an economic game) compared to another real-world, exertive activity (group-based gym circuit training sessions). We found that the type of activity did not affect measures of either social bonding or generosity. However, confirming the earlier findings for laughter, we show that while any form of exertive activity elevates the sense of group bonding (entitativity), it has no effect either on ratings of willingness to act prosocially toward another individual, or on actually acting generously toward them in an economic game. Taken together, these results suggest that altruism, cooperation, and other forms of prosociality may be the outcome of creating bonded relationships and groups, rather than their cause.

Love songs and serenades: a theoretical review of music and romantic relationships

“…The synchronized actions involved in music-dance have been highlighted as a critical element in fostering social bonds (Rennung and Göritz, 2016;Vicaria and Dickens, 2016;Mogan et al, 2017), and these bonding effects may be shared with other synchronized behaviors (McNeill, 1997). Interestingly, this synchrony effect is geared towards strengthening social bonds rather than mere pro-social behavior (Tarr and Dunbar, 2023), and it seems to be present from a very young age (Tunçgenç and Cohen, 2018). Mechanical synchrony alone can produce bonding effects, but these effects appear to be enhanced by the presence of music (Stupacher et al, 2017).…”