Physical and Mental Health of Solo, Couple and Group Dancers

This study investigates the relationship between the practice of different dance styles and physical and mental health. Our central research question is whether individuals who have more social contact opportunities through their dance practice report better levels of mental and physical health on two validated questionnaire measures (the Mental Health Continuum Short Form (MHC-SF); Keyes (2002) and the Physical Health Quotient (PHQ); Schat (2005)). Solid previous research has established that ‘social contact’ impacts neurobiological systems of health. The mechanisms by which these health-regulatory effects happen include (i) positive situational and emotional cues from other individuals in the environment, that are perceived via the senses, and transmitted to the autonomous nervous system, signaling ‘safety’, and thus, activating the parasympathetic nervous system (Laird & Lacasse (2014); Porges (2007; 2009), (ii) affective touch occurring during social interactions stimulate a specific type of mechanoreceptors in the skin, CT cells, which transmit the affective touch information to immune-regulatory systems in the brain, and (iii) moving in synchrony engages both neural co-representation mechanisms and neurohormonal mechanisms involved in bonding (e.g., via oxytocin release), stimulating the subjective experience of bonding and belonging. Dancing together affords many opportunities for engaging these three neurobiological mechanisms for health and wellbeing. Yet, formal dance styles differ in the degree to which all three mechanisms may be stimulated during the practice. We operationalize the variable ‘social contact’ by grouping our sample of dancers according to their preferred dance style, and in particular, whether this dance style is a solo, couple or a group dance. Given the characteristics of solo, couple and group dances (i.e., more direct social contact opportunities for couple and group dancers), we hypothesize that people who primarily dance couple or group dances will score higher on the MHC-SF and the PHQ, than people who primarily dance solo dances. Sample sizes permitting, we will also conduct exploratory analyses, dividing the solo and couple/group dancers into two additional groups, according to their ‘engagement level’ (i.e., recreational vs. professional engagement). Compared to recreational dancing, professional dancing has previously been associated with worse health outcomes in some studies (Christensen et al., 2021). We aim to explore how the variable ‘social contact’ interacts with the variable ‘engagement level’, and hypothesize that they do interact, however, to our knowledge, this would be the first exploration in the literature of the interaction social contact X engagement level, and we do not know the direction of any effects. Our motivation to conduct this study is the following: While the physical and mental health benefits of dance are well documented (Fong Yan et al., 2024), findings in the literature remain inconsistent. This research aims to address this research gap by investigating whether the degree of social contact in different dance styles (solo vs. couple or group dances) affects health measures. We also hope to replicate previous findings regarding better health in recreational dancing as compared to professional dancing, and will explore, how this variable interacts with the social contact variable. We will discuss results in relation to whether social contact experienced during dance practice may be a mechanism underlying some of the previously reported health effects derived from dancing. If applicable, we will extend the discussion to include the results from the interaction between social contact and the factor engagement level. In 2021, the World Health Organization (WHO) identified the reduction of loneliness as a core objective. Social isolation is now recognized as a critical global public health challenge, affecting people of all ages (WHO, 2021). Social isolation impacts longevity, overall health, and well-being, increases the risk of various health conditions and reduces quality of life. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated this problem, highlighting the urgent need to address social connection as a public health priority (WHO, 2025). Encouraging dancing may be a low-hanging fruit to help address this objective by the WHO at population level. However, policy recommendations regarding dance must to be evidence-based. In previous research about health effects from dancing, the dance style has rarely been reported, or different dance styles were mixed. This may have led to a confound in study results, and explain some of the inconsistencies (Meletaki et al., in review). We hope our study will contribute to identify the impact of the ‘treatment factor’ social contact (and perhaps its interaction with the engagement factor), and its relation to positive health outcomes.