Adolescents’ dual affective response to dance in training, grading, and competition

The aim of this in-situ research was to measure the changes in affect in adolescent dancers in three situations, before and after: a) training, b) performance grading, and c) competition. With the cooperation of a dance school, 26 girls (mean age = 15.58, SD = 1.58 years) completed the Positive Affect Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) six times. Results yielded a multivariate main effect for time, showing that both positive- and negative affect decreased from pre- to post events in all conditions, while another main effect for condition showed that negative affect was greater during competition than in the other situations. The ending of the dance, that also concludes its social context, could explain the attenuation in positive affect, while the ending of performance-related conformity might explain the decrease in negative affect after the events. Heightened negative affect in competition reveals that adolescent dancers favour the least this situation. It is concluded that adolescent girls exhibit dual affective response to dance, one to its context and one to its content. It also suggested, that youngsters may not enjoy the competition situations as much as the training situations.