If you’re reading this at home, pause and put on a song you can’t resist dancing to. Go on, bop your head to the beat. Let yourself wiggle a bit. Throw in some arms and legs. If you’re reading this at work, maybe imagine these things at your desk.

As you’re dancing, pay attention to where and how you’re moving. How much are you swaying your hips? Are your legs moving together or independently of each other? How vigorously are you moving your torso?

You should note those movements, because very specific patterns may make some people appear to be better dancers than others. That’s the conclusion of a study published on Thursday in Scientific Reports, in which researchers asked 200 people to rate 39 female dancers. A few features stood out as contributing to higher-quality dance: big hip swings, and the right and left limbs moving independently of one another (which the researchers describe as asymmetric arm and thigh movements).

The researchers speculate that those moves serve two purposes for heterosexual women. “One is, they’re showing off their reproductive quality, perhaps their hormonal status, to males,” said Nick Neave, an associate professor of psychology at Northumbria University in England and an author of the paper. “Another is, they’re showing off how good they are to female rivals.”