Ballroom dancers exhibit a dispositional need for arousal and elevated cerebral cortical activity during preferred melodic recall.

The results are generally consistent with arousal theory, and suggest that ballroom dancers seek elevated stimulation and, thereby, choose to engage with active and energetic rhythmic auditory stimulation, thus providing the nervous system with the requisite stimulation for desired arousal. These results also suggest an underlying predisposition for engagement in ballroom dance and support the gravitational hypothesis, which propose that personality traits and perception lead to the motivation to engage in specific forms of human performance.