Psy performs 'Gangnam Style' before a football match at Rome's Olympic Stadium in May 2013 TIZIANA FABI/AFP/Getty Images

The appeal of Gangnam Style may seem baffling, but psychologists may have (partly) got to the bottom of why dance crazes feel so good -- and it's all to do with social bonding.

Researchers at Oxford University spent time with a group of dancers and discovered that dance routines play an important role in social bonding, as well as raising pain thresholds. The results were published in the journal Biology Letters.


The team studied nearly 300 Brazilian teenagers who were taught to dance in small groups. Groups were asked either to perform individual dance moves or follow the same routine, as well as perform standing up or sitting down in order to study exertion.

Participants were given questionnaires about how socially connected they felt before and after the dances, and were also given pressure tests by researchers to measure pain threshold. And both coordinated dancing and exertion "demonstrated significant independent positive effects [...] suggesting that dance which involves both exertive and synchronised movement may be an effective group bonding activity".

The team hypothesised that these effects were down to the release of endorphins, which are both an analgesic and reward-inducing.

"If you exert yourself or synchronise your movements, you can arrive at an elevated pain threshold. If you do both, the effect is additive," said Bronwyn Tarr, lead researcher (and dancer) said.

For those worrying that they have to take part in a flashmob to experience the effects of synchronised dancing, never fear. Even a small amount of synchronised dancing garnered positive results. "It could be that if you just sync for a moment at your Christmas party that is enough. You don’t have to be doing the Macarena for hours on end to establish the effect."