Directionality and condensation of body movement through a self-assessment tool

Abstract

Movement can provide information about the way people express themselves and interacting with others. Scientific studies support the importance of non- verbal communication in the interpersonal relationship, decoding them through a reading of the body and of the movement. The aim of this research is to evaluate the reliability of an instrument of self-observation to investigate the expressiveness of the movement through specific dimensions, such as movement’s chinesfera, centrality, structuring, rhythm, coordination, flow, rigidity and intensity. It is about the Scheda Diade, rev. 3 di Lettura del Movimento, a tool for monitoring a conscious interaction, in which the subjects give self-assessment of one's motor and relational controtransfert. The instrument and the method of administration are based on constructs derived from neurophysiology and they are rooted in the Laban Movement Analysis. The study has been carried out on a sample of 432 subjects, included students, manager, teachers and counselors, who participated in training courses about the relationship with the other, through body awareness and Dance Movement Therapy (DMT) modules. The collected data from the administration ex ante and ex post of the Scheda Diade rev. 3 allowed to detect some changes in movement. First, from the intrinsic analysis of the test emerged the presence of two peculiar components: directionality and condensation. Moreover, the processing of the data, collected in ex ante, highlighted, in some dimensions shown in the Diade, significant differences related to the sex of the participants and to the category of belonging, differentiations that tend to conform as a result of training interventions, as shown by the data ex post.