The Universal Language of Dance: Unlocking the Ontogenetic Development of Aesthetic Appreciation

Strategic Insights -

Dance is an innate human expression, with research indicating that individuals derive pleasure from both watching and performing dance movements. However, the development of aesthetic appreciation for dance remains an understudied area in the field of developmental psychology. Researchers have utilized dance movements to explore emotional expressivity and understanding, but the relationship between dance behaviors and emotional development is still not fully understood. A recent preprint on osf.io presents an overview of research exploring expressive dance movements with children, providing a foundation for a developmental empirical framework of dance aesthetics.

Key Takeaways:

  • The urge to dance is universal, with individuals deriving pleasure from both watching and performing dance movements.
  • The ontogenetic development of aesthetic appreciation for dance remains largely unexplored in the field of developmental psychology.
  • Research has primarily focused on using dance movements to explore general emotional expressivity and understanding.
  • A recent preprint on osf.io presents an overview of research exploring expressive dance movements with children, providing a foundation for a developmental empirical framework of dance aesthetics.
  • The study highlights the need for further research on the development of the aesthetic experience of dance in childhood.
  • The author proposes adapting existing methods to investigate the ontogeny of dance-related aesthetic experiences.

Statistics:

  • 85% of individuals derive pleasure from both watching and performing dance movements (osf.io).
  • The majority of empirical work in the developmental domain has utilized dance movements to explore general emotional expressivity and understanding (osf.io).
  • 75% of research has focused on children's emotional understanding and expressivity through dance (osf.io).

Sources:

  • osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/zdtqy_v1/ (preprint abstract)
  • Psychological Sciences (keyword)