By Apoorva Sripathi

Isn’t there something hypnotic about watching Shakira dance, with her hips swaying about and her careless blonde curls flailing around? Apparently, there’s a scientific explanation to this — thanks to the valiant efforts of researchers, who published a study in Scientific Reports, where they asked 200 people to rate 39 female dancers.

The result?

“Greater hip swing, more asymmetric movements of the thighs, and intermediate levels of asymmetric movements of the arms” make for high-quality dancers among women, the study says.

In other words, follow Shakira’s movements and you’re set.

The New York Times, among other outlets that reported this, writes the study is a “part of a larger field called social cognition”, which looks to understand “how people use small bits of perceptual information to make large inferences about their social world”, according to Frank Pollick, a psychology professor at the University of Glasgow.

But what’s the with the hips, you ask? According to the study, “hip swing is a trait that identifies female movement”. We don’t know about that (since we love to strike down any assumptions on gender binary), but we’ll tell you one thing: Go on, put on some music and swing your arms madly. And don’t forget to shake your hips, while you’re at it!