Elephant on the Dance Floor: Revealing the Significance of Dancers’ Sex in Coalition Quality Assessments

Collective dances are considered to serve as a strategic tool to convey information about the internal stability and collective action capabilities of performing coalitions. This communicative function not only aids in ally recruitment but also facilitates decision-making to manage conflicts within coalitions. While previous empirical studies mainly focused on mechanical aspects such as dance simultaneity, the influential role of dancers’ sex, a crucial coalitional component, is often overlooked. Considering that sex is rapidly and automatically detected by others, neglecting dancers’ sex may raise questions about the ecological validity of previous findings. Moreover, no current research examines how dancers’ sex influences the coalition quality assessments made by passive observers. To address this gap, the present study investigates potential differences in coalition quality ratings between dances performed solely by males and females. Drawing from the evolutionary perspective on male participation in coalitional dynamics, particularly the outgroup male target hypothesis, we propose that male dancers would be perceived as having higher coalition quality than female dancers, and dancers’ sex effect would exceed the effect of movement simultaneity type. The results confirm our hypothesis, highlighting that it is dancers’ sex, rather than movement simultaneity type, plays a primary role in coalition evaluations. Implications are discussed through the lenses of error management theory, the outgroup male target hypothesis, and the recognition of sex as a dominant social cue.