Date of Award

6-2009

Document Type

Union College Only

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Kenneth Debono

Language

English

Keywords

spirituality, dancers, dance, compared, dancing

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between dance and spirituality. It was hypothesized that dancers would demonstrate an increase in spirituality after five weeks of dance classes compared to non-dancers. Twenty-one undergraduates who took dance class(es) and 33 students who did not engage in dancing completed a spirituality questionnaire twice, and the spirituality difference was compared. Although the results did not support the primary hypothesis, the observed means in descriptive statistics based on two factor analyses indicated that the results were in the predicted direction. The dancers seemed to show an increase in spirituality, while non-dancers showed a decrease. Future studies with a larger number and with more variability of samples may contribute to investigating the relationship between dancing and spirituality.

Share

COinS