Emotion, embodiment, and mirror neurons in dance/movement therapy: A connection across disciplines

Abstract

The current study questions whether our emotions change depending on whether we watch a person model postures or, rather, embody the postures ourselves. The posture photographs from the Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy Test of Posture (DANVA2-POS) were used as the stimuli by which to rate levels of agreement among participants. Forty-one individuals were randomly allocated to one of two groups (observing or embodying) and invited to rate, in open-ended written responses, twenty-four postures by describing the emotion or feeling associated with each posture. The responses were then coded as happy, sad, angry, fearful, shameful, or surprised. A comparison of means demonstrated that there were no differences in response among all emotions except anger. A significantly higher anger response was shown for the embodying condition than for the observing condition. © American Dance Therapy Association 2008.