江南style为何让人不可抗拒,席卷全球 ---[舞蹈和进化心理学]泡妞必修

最近爆红的PSY鸟叔用他classy的打扮和cheesy的舞蹈迷倒了台下的千万女人+万千基友。高帅富穷屌丝们想泡妞嘛？ 不要停下你的舞步。这个意见不是来自相亲节目的情感砖家，而是来自一项最新研究：Northumbia大学的进化心理学家Nick Neave 想知道跳舞好的男人是不是更吸引女人。

他们使用一种动作捕捉反射机器来消除外表的影响。 研究者在人体关节等部位粘了38个反射器，一共有30歌男性学生参加了此次实验。实验者放起音乐，要求学生想象自己在夜店，并跳30秒的舞。12个摄像机记录了他们的舞蹈。 一个电脑摄取反射器传来的信息，并将动作投射到一个虚拟的人形上（如下图）。 这些“化身”并不像阿凡达里的纳美人一样动作灵巧、力量强大， 但他们仍能很好的还原动作，就算是鸟叔的绚丽舞步他们也能跟上。

异性恋女性被要求观看这些化身的跳舞视频并评分，以跳舞水平好到差给“化身”们排序。（Neave 在预实验中发现，问女性“谁跳舞跳的好”和“谁更有吸引力”得到的结果是一样的。）

世界上的很多动物都会用动作来“沟女”。雄性招潮蟹挥动他们的大钳子来勾引雌蟹、蜂鸟则喜欢炫耀他们杰出的飞行能力，这些动作显露着他们的力量和运动能力（是不是想到了高中运动会上龙腾虎跃、肌肉发达的校草？）

研究者认为，跳舞是男人向女人展示力量、健康的最真实途径，就像招潮蟹挥舞强健有力的钳子和蜂鸟的飞行表演一样。 未来的研究，他们会着重研究好舞者和坏舞者的健康差异。

江南style火爆后，众多明星粉丝争相模仿。但能火的都是帅哥猛男的模仿视频，如下，是美国一所海军学院的制服诱惑。他们发达的肌肉和俊秀的外表是不是如上文所说，展示了他们的力量和健康呢？

Rutgers大学的生物人类学家HelenFisher 也认为女人在乎男人的舞蹈水平是有道理的，“千万年来，男人拥有良好的运动协调性即意味着他能提供更好的生活和更大的生存机会。”（想想看：一只人猿的运动协调性好，敌人入侵时他扔石头就扔的更准。）而男性舞蹈编排的多样性也表明他拥有创新力，这也意味着这只“人猿”处事乐观、充满活力，或者更有勇气。

研究认为不同的文化中，不同的舞步会有不同的吸引力。乌克兰的一个骚男团体以性感的高跟鞋和妖娆的舞姿为卖点，他们性开放的国度会很受欢迎，甚至成为了T台表演的常客，在这些国家的人眼里，也许他们的妖娆舞步是阴阳的完美结合。但在亚洲国家，却是不能被接受。 而在韩国日本的流行明星的看似很阳刚的街舞动作却在欧美国家不能被接受，他们反而认为这种舞步是“sissy ”的。

P.S:江南style会火，除了PSY叔的奇特长相和打扮、其易学且识别度高的骑马舞步以外，也许跟《最炫民族风》、《call me maybe》一样，都是因为其朗朗上口的节奏，其实也就是会在脑海里盘旋歌不停让人不由自主的哼起来（耳虫现象）。

These Dance Moves Are Irresistible

Hey, guys, want to impress ladies on the dance floor? Keep your head and torso moving, and don't flail your arms and legs. This useful advice comes courtesy of a new study, which finds that women are more attracted to computer avatars that rock these moves.

Humans aren't the only animals that move in special ways to lure females. Male fiddler crabs wave an outsized claw to show off, and male hummingbirds display their flying prowess with a flamboyant mating dive. These moves probably show off their strength and motor skills. Evolutionary psychologist Nick Neave of Northumbria University in Newcastle Upon Tyne wondered whether there was something about male human dancing that impressed females as well.

Neave and colleagues couldn't just round up a bunch of men and ask them to gyrate in front of women, however. That's because it's hard to separate a man's physical appearance from his dancing skills. "You could be the best dancer in the world, but if you've got an awful haircut or something like that," women may still find you unattractive, says Neave. So he and colleagues cut out the effect of physical appearance by using motion-capture technology, like the techniques moviemakers use to make digital characters.

The researchers stuck 38 reflective markers to the joints and other body parts of 30 male students at Northumbria University. Then they asked the guys to dance for 30 seconds as if they were in a nightclub, while a thumping drum beat played over speakers. Twelve video cameras recorded the action. A computer used data on the location of the markers to construct an avatar of each man (see videos). The avatars are "not quite James Cameron [quality], but they're pretty good," says Neave. In a video of a bad dancer, the avatar trudges in a circle, awkwardly moving his arms. An avatar made from a good dancer moves his whole body from side to side, mixing up his moves with impressive creativity.

Wrong moves. A bad dancer trudges in a circle, swinging his arms.

Credit: Northumbria University

Nice moves! A good dancer mixes up his moves and keeps his head and torso shakin'.

Credit: Northumbria University

Heterosexual women watched the videos andrated them according to whether the man was a good dancer or a bad dancer. (Neave says pilot studies by his group found that asking women who's a good dancer is the same as asking who's attractive.)

The most important factor to the women was how much the man moved his head, neck, and torso, the researchers will report online tomorrow inBiology Letters. Better dancers are "nodding their head, they're turning the head to one side, they're turning their head to the other side, there's a large nod, there's a small nod, there's a nod to the left," Neave says.

The team expected to see a lot of action in the hands and feet. "Legs and arms we thought would be really important, and they're not, apart from the right knee," says Neave. He thinks that's because most people are right-footed—so they use their left leg for balance and execute fancy moves with the right. He and his colleagues think dance is an honest signal to women of the man's strength and health, just as it is in crabs and hummingbirds; in future studies, they'll look at the health of the good and bad dancers.

It makes sense that women would care about men's ability to dance, says Helen Fisher, a biological anthropologist at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. "For millions of years, a man with well-coordinated movements of the head, neck, and trunk [which he used when throwing weapons] probably signaled his ability to provide," she writes in an e-mail. Varying his dance moves shows creativity, a trait associated with energy, optimism, and daring.

Judith Hanna, an anthropologist at the University of Maryland, College Park, who studies dance, calls the use of avatars "brilliant." She says it would be interesting to replicate the study with different populations; in different cultures, different dance moves may be seen as attractive.