Peter Lovatt - Do dancers have lower self - esteem than non-dancers?

I recently watched Dr Peter Lovatt (Head of Dance Psychology Lab at the university of Hertfordshire) video on how his research shows that dancers do not have lower self-esteem than non-dancers.

Peter talks about dance and thinking and how moving the body in certain ways, rythmic or unrythmic changes the way you think and solve problems. Which links with the way you move your body and conversion and diversion problem solving - thought processes. He states that dancers are able to recognise emotions in dance and communicate emotions through movements. He then goes on to state that there is a link between dancing and your hormonal make up and the way in which you move your body is linked to your hormonal & genetic make up.

Peter talks about his life experience, communicating was difficult for him and dancing came natural, when he danced it changed his mood; He thought more differently, felt better and thought more clearly allowing his mood to be uplifted. He believes that we are born to dance and that dance was used as a form of communication and social bonding before verbal language. 'Dance is a fundamental part of language, a fundamental part of communication'.

He goes on to talk about dance and self esteem and that literature has suggested that dancers have lower self esteem than non dancers. Self esteem (umbrella term) - 'The degree to which one values oneself' (Reber, dictionary of psychology). He suggests that when we measure self esteem we have to be careful about what it is where measuring, what aspect of self esteem.

Other elements of self esteem:

- Domain specific:  How good am I at what I do? What is my self worth?

- Domain general: What sort of person am I?

- Trait: How persistant is my self esteem?

- State: How you feel right now?

- Personal: How good I am personally with other people?

- Social: How comfortable and secure am I in my social relationships?

- Appearance: How you feel about the way you look?

All different types of self esteem can be measured differently and altered and changed in each of us.

So why is this relevant in dance training?

- Some studies have reported that dancers have lower self esteem than non dancers.

- The dance training enviroment is responsible for reducing a persons self-esteem. Peter suggested that if this is the case, there needs to be thought about changes in the dance enviroment.

So what? Why should this matter? What is the issue?

- Low self-esteem is a predictor of eating disorders (Button 1996; Grant&Fodor, 1986; Pesa, 1996)

- Low self-esteem is associated with:

                                                      - Stress(Fryer et al. 1997)

                                                      - Depression (NHS)

                                                      - Self-harm (NHS)

If low self-esteem wasn't a problem then it wouldn't matter whether dancers have high or low self-esteem, but if dancers have low self-esteem it can lead to these kind of things. Lovatt suggests that if it is the dance enviroment that has changed a person's self-esteem, lowered it in some sort of way, it becomes very very important.

Evidence that links to dancers having low self-esteem:

- Alter (1984)

- Bakker (1988 & 1991)

- Bettle et al. (2001)

- Hamilton et al. (2001)

- Marchant - Haycock & Wilson (1992)

- Solomon et al. (2001)

- Taylor (1997)

These researchers looked at the relationship between dance and self esteem and there was no consistent pattern found between papers. However these 3 papers argue that dancers have lower self-esteem than non-dancers:

- Bakker (1988 & 1991)

- Marchant - Haycock & Wilson (1992)

- Bettle et al. (2001)

Bakker took 15 dancers aged 15 from a ballet school and compared those with an equal number of none dancers. He found that the ballet dancers had lower self esteem than the non dancers. He then took 11-12 year olds and concluded that there was a lower self-esteem in dancers again.

Reasons being:

- Constantly told their not very good

- Self- selection (reinforce negative feelings) (Bakker, 1991)

- Teaching methods reduce self-esteem (Buckroyd, 2000) Argues that dancers go into dance college with high self-esteem andcome out with extremely low self esteem.

- Mirrors effect body image (Radell et al. 2002) Argues that self - perception was higher when the mirrors weren't there.

- Tight clothing has effect on self-perceptions (Price & PettiJohn, 2006)

These 3 papers argue that dancers have high self-esteem:

- Solomon et al. (2001)

- Hamilton et al. (1989)

- Alter (1984)

Solomon looked at professional dancers, finding that they had high self-esteem.

I can agree with this as I believe professional dancers are bound to have high self-esteem, they are working consistently and professionally in what they are trained in and love doing. However the large amount of dancers who are trained professionally to a high level who are not working as a professional dancer are bound to have lower self-esteem. I believe we cannot categorise that 'all dancers have lower self-esteem' as there is a wide range of dancers on the scale to think about; Dancers training at college (In a bubble, in a comfort zone - doing what they love every day and yet to go into the profession)Experienced Professional dancers (Dancers who have danced professionally for many years with a large ammount of experience) Professional dancers (Dancers who are new to the industry and recently had their first professional job) Trained dancers but not working professionally (Dancers who are trained but struggling to gain a professional job)

To state that dancers have 'low self-esteem' than non-dancers I feel you would have to consider and take into account the aspects above.

Lovatt replicates the studies as he believes that in previous studies:

- There was no consistent way of measuring self-esteem

- Only small samples were used

- Was difficult to draw together

- There are different types and levels of dancers

- All studies used very different methods of measuring self-esteem

Present study on whether dancers have lower self-esteem than non-dancers:

- Larger sample (816)

-Vary in dance styles, level, frequency

- Dancers, ex dancers, non-dancers

- Targeted groups on-line

- Rosenbierg self-esteem scale (1965) (Trait)

-Heatherton & Polivy (1991) (state)

Lovatt talks about there being an issue defining who was a dancer and who wasn't a dancer as he suggests that it is difficult to define yourself as a dancer if you are not earning a lot of money professionally.

Lovatt studies shows that dancers do NOT have lower self-esteem than none dancers. Questions used in the sample:

-What sort of styles?

- How long have you been doing the styles?

- When they last did the style?

- Level they are at at thestyle?

He used an anova to analyse this and there was no difference in trait and state self-esteem.

He concludes that:

- Self esteem varies with level or experience

- Dancers do not have lower self-esteem than non-dancers

- Self esteem varies with dance frequency

- Self esteem carries with dance expertise

- Self esteem changes over time

- There are different levels of self esteem.

What next?

- What is the self esteem of advanced yet Non-Professional Dancers?

- What other factors interact with self-esteem in dancers?

- What happens to millions of people who train all those years? but never work as a dancer in their life?

 After watching this video, I agree with neither studies. The question 'do dancers have lower self esteem than non-dancers' A large percentage of dancers could have lower self-esteem than non-dancers but then a large percentage of dancers could also have higher self-esteem than non-dancers. There is no yes or no for this questions as it depends on many factors. I also believe it depends on the type of person you are and how you deal with certain situations and obstacles you face.

As I wanted to look into psychology within a dancer as a potential inquiry I thought this video would be interesting to watch, however as I am becoming more passionate about teaching now I want my inquiry to link to my teaching. So I am now thinking how I can link both together and come up with a possible inquiry relating to psychology within dance in the teaching enviroment.