Women’s attractiveness perception of men’s dance movements in relation to self-reported and perceived personality

Recent research on women’s ratings of men’s dance movements indicates that women derive similar cues of male “quality” (e.g., physical strength) from movement as from faces and bodies. Whether this extends to personality assessment is yet unclear. We recorded dance movements of 80 men using 3D optical motion-capture technology and secured self-reports of men’s personality standings. Dance movements were applied to a uniform, shape-standardized virtual humanoid character (avatar) and presented to women as 15-s videos for attractiveness and personality ratings. Women’s ratings of dance attractiveness correlated negatively with men’s self-reports and women’s ratings of men’s neuroticism and were positively correlated with men’s self-reported extraversion and women’s ratings of men’s conscientiousness. Men’s self-reported personality scores did not correlate with women’s ratings of men’s personality standings. Findings are discussed with reference to previous research and the social significance of dance movement cues and impression formation.