The Relationship between Passion and the Psychological Well-Being of Professional Dancers

Abstract

The Dualistic Model of Passion defines passion as an intense desire or enthusiasm for a self-defining activity that people love, consider important, and devote significant amounts of time and energy to. The model proposes two distinct types of passion, harmonious (HP) and obsessive (OP). HP occurs when the activity is autonomously internalized into the individual's life and identity, while OP is a result of a controlled internalization of the activity. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence and type of passion professional dancers have for dance in relation to their psychological well-being, specifically eating attitudes, self-esteem, and perfectionism. Participants were 92 professional dancers, aged 19 to 35 years (M = 27.03, SD = 3.84), and mostly from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. Results revealed that HP positively predicted self-esteem (SE), while OP positively predicted self-evaluative perfectionism (SEP), conscientious perfectionism (CP), and disordered eating attitudes (EAT-26). Additionally, SEP was found to mediate the relationship between OP and EAT-26, suggesting that OP may lead to SEP, which could in turn motivate disordered eating. Overall, the results of this study have supported and extended previous research suggesting that the two types of passion can have divergent effects on aspects of psychological well-being. Findings indicate that HP should be encouraged and OP discouraged among dancers, for example, via autonomy supportive behaviors of teachers.

Body Image Dissatisfaction, Eating Disorders, and Associated Factors in Brazilian Professional Ballroom Dancers

“…1,16,32 Hence the present study found an association between dissatisfaction with the percep-tion of being overweight and eating disorders, with a 3% greater chance for those professional dancers showing higher EAT scores and a 28% greater chance for those presenting higher scores on the BITE symptom scale to develop these disorders. The current literature confirms these tendencies, indicating that dancers as a population are exceptionally prone to dissatisfaction due to the perception of being overweight 17,30,31,33 and consequently to eating disorder symptoms, 3,10,16,32,34 all of which are 28% more prevalant in females than males. 3,8,35 It was observed that females in our study had a 96% smaller chance of showing dissatisfaction with underweight when compared to males.…”

A qualitative study of perfectionism among self-identified perfectionists in sport and the performing arts.

“…However, it is only recently that researchers have begun to examine the relationship between perfectionism and obsessiveness in sport and the performing arts. Moreover, this research has so far been limited to perfectionism and obsessive passion (a compulsive and rigid attraction to personally meaningful, highly valued, and self-defining activities; Curran, Hill, Jowett, & Mallinson, 2014; Padham & Aujla, 2014; Vallerand, 2008). The accounts of the participants here suggest obsessiveness is central to being a perfectionist.…”

Competencies of Classroom Teacher-Counselor towards Students’ Self-Esteem Development

“…A wide-ranging idea with the internal attitudes of personality is self-esteem, the negative and positive are both standard in psychological well-being (Padham & Aujla, 2014), while selfconcept is defined as overall cognitive beliefs a person may have regarding themselves. Selfesteem is derived from self-concept.…”