Dance Psychology is the study of dance and dancers from a scientific, psychological, perspective. The Dance Psychology Lab was set up in 2008 as a centre for teaching and research in the science of dance and dancers.
On this page you'll find information and links to:
Peter Lovatt's Online Courses
What is Dance Psychology?
New Dance Psychology Lecture Series coming soon
Mental Skills for Dancers - an Introduction
£49 + tax
Learn online, at your own pace, in your own time.
Mental Skills for Dancers - Motivation
£49 + tax
Learn online, at your own pace, in your own time.
Mental Skills for Dancers - Anxiety
£49 + tax
Learn online, at your own pace, in your own time.
Current Research Projects
Movement for Mental Health
This project is a practical movement/dance based intervention for people who are struggling with their mental health. It is based on a collaboration between Darcey Bussell’s DDMIX and Dr Dance Presents. The project is currently in the R&D and evaluation stage. For further information about this Movement for Mental Health Project please contact Lindsey.Lovatt@movementinpractice.com
A full list of past and present projects will soon appear - as if by magic...
Online Surveys and Quizzes
The purpose of the Dance Motivation Questionnaire is to help you think about your own motivations for dancing or performing. It is based on Hancox et al. (2015) and provides three scores for Autonomous, Controlled and Amotivation.
Take this short quiz to test your emotional intelligence. Get an overall emotional intelligence score plus scores for self-awareness, self-regulation, self-motivation, empathy and social skills.
This quiz is based on the work of Watson, Clark, & Tellegen (1988). Your task is to read twenty words and rate to what extent you feel these emotions. You get two scores, one for Positive Affect and one for Negative Affect.
Academic Resources
The study of Dance Psychology is based on academic research and peer-reviewed literature.
Academic research in the general field of Dance Psychology is publsihed in a wide range of peer-reviewed journals.
Many of these journals operate on a pay-per-view or subscription basis.
However, we are fortunate that there is a growing number of “Open Access” journals which publish articles in the field of Dance Psychology.
Articles in “Open Access” journals are free to read.
Here is a list of Open Access journals which have published articles in the general area of Dance Psychology.
Open Access Journals
Acta Psychologica publishes research studies, review articles and special issues in any area of experimental psychology. Research studies should be focused on increasing our understanding of human behaviour and cognition. The majority of the articles deal with perception, attention, language, memory, cognitive and/or affective control, numerical and motor cognition.
American Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease and other Dementias® (AJADD) is an open access journal for researchers, physicians, nurses, psychiatrists, nursing home and assisted living administrators, and other healthcare professionals who deal with patients with dementias every day. AJADD publishes original research, case studies and media reviews on all aspects of Alzheimer’s and dementia.
The Arts in Psychotherapy is a dynamic, contemporary journal publishing evidence-based research, expert opinion, theoretical positions, and case material on a wide range of topics intersecting the fields of mental health and creative arts therapies.
Behavioral Interventions aims to report research and practice involving the utilization of applied behavior analytic techniques in the treatment, education, assessment and training of students, clients or patients, as well as training techniques used with staff. Behavioral Interventions publishes: (1) research articles, (2) brief reports (a short report of an innovative technique or intervention that may be less methodologically rigorous than a research report), (3) topical literature reviews and discussion articles, and (4) book reviews.
Behavioral Sciences (ISSN 2076-328X; CODEN: BSECCV) is an international peer-reviewed open access journal of psychology, neuroscience, cognitive science, behavioral biology and behavioral genetics published monthly online by MDPI.
Body & Society has from its inception in March 1995 as a peer-reviewed companion journal to Theory, Culture & Society, pioneered and shaped the field of body-studies. It has been committed to theoretical openness characterized by the publication of a wide range of critical approaches to the body, alongside the encouragement and development of innovative work that contains a trans-disciplinary focus.
The British Journal of Special Education (BJSE) is concerned with a wide range of special educational needs, and covers all levels of education pre-school, school, and post-school.
Cogent Psychology considers empirical research articles, reviews and new perspective contributions offering an update or new interpretation of a past study in any area of psychology and behavioural science. Submissions are handled by a community of active specialists within the following thematic sections of the journal:
Cognition is an international journal that publishes theoretical and experimental papers on the study of the mind. It covers a wide variety of subjects concerning all the different aspects of cognition, ranging from biological and experimental studies to formal analysis.
Education Sciences (ISSN 2227-7102) is a scholarly international open access journal. It publishes extended full-length research papers that have the scope to substantively address current issues in education.
The EJHR publishes commissioned guest articles, peer-reviewed research articles and commentaries, book reviews and research notes, which are meant to track research projects from the start to the end of the project and provide details on rationale, methodology and project results and outcomes.
European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy-EJPAP publishes articles which explore the American tradition in philosophy, with a special focus on pragmatism and on the relationships of pragmatism to the social sciences. EJPAP promotes exploration of interdisciplinary issues and approaches and favors the mutual dialogue among different traditions in philosophy and in the social sciences.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience is a leading journal in its field, publishing rigorously peer-reviewed research that advances our understanding of the brain mechanisms supporting cognitive and social behavior in humans, in both healthy and diseased states.
Frontiers in Psychology is the largest journal in its field, publishing rigorously peer-reviewed research across the psychological sciences, from clinical research to cognitive science, from perception to consciousness, from imaging studies to human factors, and from animal cognition to social psychology.
Human Movement Science provides a medium for publishing disciplinary and multidisciplinary studies on human movement. It brings together psychological, biomechanical and neurophysiological research on the control, organization and learning of human movement, including the perceptual support of movement.
Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis (JABA) is a psychology journal that publishes research about applications of the experimental analysis of behavior to problems of social importance.
The Journal of Nonverbal Behavior publishes peer-reviewed original theoretical and empirical research papers on all major areas of nonverbal behavior. The coverage extends to paralanguage, proxemics, facial expressions, eye contact, face-to-face interaction, and nonverbal emotional expression, as well as other relevant topics which contribute to the scientific understanding of nonverbal processes and behavior.
Language, Cognition and Neuroscience is an international peer-reviewed journal promoting integrated cognitive theoretical studies of language and its neural bases. The journal takes an interdisciplinary approach to the study of brain and language, aiming to integrate excellent cognitive science and neuroscience to answer key questions about the nature of language and cognition in the mind and the brain.
Neuropsychologia is an international interdisciplinary journal devoted to experimental and theoretical contributions that advance understanding of human cognition and behavior from a neuroscience perspective.
New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development is a quarterly thematic multidisciplinary journal dedicated to new perspective and scholarship in the field of child and adolescent development. Each issue/volume in the series is a completely self-contained, fully indexed edited collection of articles focusing on one specific topic.
Open Cultural Studies is a peer-reviewed, scholarly journal that explores the fields of Humanities, Social Sciences and Arts. It interprets culture in an inclusive sense, in different theoretical, geographical and historical contexts.
Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts is devoted to promoting scholarship on the psychology of the production and appreciation of the arts and all aspects of creative endeavor.
To that end, we publish manuscripts presenting original empirical research and papers that synthesize and evaluate extant research that relate to the psychology of aesthetics, creativity, and the arts.
Psychology of Music publishes peer reviewed papers directed at increasing the scientific understanding of any psychological aspect of music. These include studies on listening, performing, creating, memorising, analysing, describing, learning, and teaching, as well as applied social, developmental, attitudinal and therapeutic studies.
Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health is the first international journal solely dedicated to the advancement and debate of qualitative research within sport and exercise psychology, sport sociology, sports coaching, and sports and exercise medicine.
