Chimps do it. Gorillas do it. Michael Phelps does it, too.
The exuberant dance of victory -- arms thrust toward the sky and chests puffed out at a defeated opponent -- turns out to be an instinctive trait in all primates -- humans included, according to research released Monday.
Scientists from the University of British Columbia and San Francisco State looked at thousands of photographs of judo matches during the 2004 Summer Olympics and Paralympic Games in Athens, Greece, for such classic in-your-face victory moves as clenched fists, thrown back heads and outstretched arms.
The images of the 140 blind and sighted athletes from 37 countries showed that blind Paralympic athletes struck the same triumphant stance as sighted Olympic athletes. Because the blind athletes couldn't have learned the victory dance by watching others, the scientists concluded that the behavior is innate, and the dance was the same for all regardless of the culture or country.
This display of human pride closely resembles the dominance displays of chimps and monkeys, which also feature outstretched arms and exaggerated postures, researchers said.
Jessica L. Tracy, a psychologist at the University of British Columbia and the lead author of the study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, said that the hangdog look of losers also turns out to be an instinctive trait.
But the researchers were surprised to find that sighted athletes from individualistic societies, such as in the U.S. and western Europe, tend to put on a brave front -- outwardly appearing to stand tall in the face of defeat and shame, the report says.
Tracy speculated that the athletes are intentionally masking their feelings because losing is so stigmatized in their cultures. We have been taught to hide it, she said, "even if we screw up in life."
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