Personality

Strictly Come Dancing - Empathizing or Systemizing?

Are you an Empathizing Dancer, or a Systemizing Dancer?

Posted November 20, 2010

Last night I spoke on Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two (BBC2) about several aspects of psychology and how they could be applied to dance and dancers. I was asked to comment on Anne Widdecombe (former British MP), Felicity Kendal (Actor), Gavin Henson (Rugby player), Matt Baker (TV Presenter) and Scott Maslen (Actor). The producers set all but one of the questions and I provided the answers. I had to support my answers with dance/performance -based evidence.

The first two questions were about the state of mind of Ann and Felicity while they were dancing.

Q1: What do you think Ann's state of mind is during the dance?
Q2: How is Felicity's state of mind during her performance? Is it similar or different to Ann's?

To answer questions 1 and 2 I used Baron-Cohen's empathizing-systemizing (E-S) theory. According to this theory (see Baron-Cohen, 2009) empathizing refers to our ability to recognize the mental states of others and to have an appropriate emotional reaction to those mental states, and systemizing refers to a drive to analyze or construct systems. With regards the dances of Ann and Felicity I pointed out that Ann appeared to be approaching Strictly Come Dancing in a systemizing way and Felicity was approaching it in an empathizing way.

Strictly Come Dancing

It seems to me that when I watch Ann Widdecombe dance she is focused almost entirely on the system of dance. She is focusing entirely on the counts (1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3), the steps and on remembering what comes next. When she dances she either looks down at her feet or she stares into her partner's chest. When she is in close hold she appears to be taking her lead from the physical presence of her professional dance partner (Anton Du Beke), but she seldom makes eye contact with him during the performance and she never looks out to the audience. When she is in open hold she appears to be dancing entirely on her own. As such I think Ann could be described as a systemizing dancer. One of the effects of this is that Ann and Anton look like they are dancing in a bubble, separated from the audience.

Strictly Come Dancing

On the other hand, when I watch Felicity Kendal dance she appears to be the polar opposite of Ann. Felicity seems to focus on her performance, such that she is dancing intimately with her partner (Vincent Simone) and for the audience. During her performance she displays an understanding of the mental states of both her partner and the audience and she uses this explicitly during the dance. When she dances she consistently looks up and out. Because of this she is able to explicitly manipulate the audiences gaze between her and her partner by, for example, either lifting up her partners shirt to reveal his body to the audience or by making exaggerated facial expressions as a response to stumbling over her footwork. As such I think Felicity could be described as an empathizing dancer. One of the effects of this is that Felicity and Vincent look like a well-connected couple who are dancing together, and who are dancing as a performance rather than as a pure technical exercise.

There are no right or wrong ways to dance and it is neither a good nor a bad thing to be either a systemizing dancer or an empathizing dancer. Systemizing dancers are likely to focus more on the structure of the steps and neglect the audience's perception of the performance whereas empathizing dancers are likely to focus more on the third party perceptions of the dance performance and neglect the details associated with the structure, or technique, of the dance.

Of course, the most effective technical competitive dancers are likely to be those who score highly on both empathizing and systemizing, such that they are able to focus on the structural system of dance, particularly during the learning and training phase, and also on the mental state of their partner and the relationship they have with the audience and the judges, particularly during the performance stage of the dance.