JUST DANCE

Group dancing is ubiquitous all over the world and consists of synchronized human movement, has bodily aesthetic and cultural values. Via the increase of endorphin release, which is pain relieving and reward-inducing, dance is said to play a huge role in social bonding. When multiple people dance, the time-problem is illuminated as opposed to 1:1 fingertip grooming as primates do to create and retain social bonds. During this research, systematic observations, survey results and literature were exploited to triangulate the points of view on group dancing in fully synchronized, partial synchronized and online and offline conditions. Both experiments demonstrate a greater effect in offline group dancing. Interestingly, partial synchronization made people feel closer to each other pre-activity than when fully synchronized (respectively 17.9% vs. 14.5%). Moreover, there was a high preference for music incorporation. We recommend further investigation as we believe dance and language evolution are deeply linked and have a strong effect on social bonds.