Q & A: Why do we 'dance' when we want to pee?
Answer:
A full bladder is uncomfortable and creates a sense of urgency in our mind. The conflict between the desire to take action to relieve the stress and the fact that circumstances don’t currently permit us to, gets translated into various rhythmic displacement behaviours. These include humming to ourselves, clenching and unclenching muscles or hopping from foot to foot, despite the fact that remaining still and calm actually allows you to last for longer. Another example of displacement behaviour is when a person scratches their head when they don’t know which of two options to choose.
Displacement Behavior Definition
Performance of an act inappropriate for the stimulus or stimuli that evoked it. It usually occurs when ‘an animal’ is torn between two conflicting drives, such as fear and aggression. Displacement activities in animals often involve actions that bring comfort such as scratching, drinking or feeding.
Displacement Behaviour Examples in Animals
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A good example of displacement behaviour is when you try to entice a squirrel to come up and take a peanut. The squirrel becomes conflicted, caught between two incompatible drives. It wants the nut, but it fears humans. The squirrel is caught between approach and avoidance tendencies, but it cannot do both at once. It becomes visibly edgy. It may take a few hops toward the human holding the peanut, then scratch itself suddenly or make a few digging movements. This does not mean the squirrel has an itch or needs to dig a hole. It is "breaking the tension" caused by competing urges.
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Male stickleback fish stand on their heads and dig into the sand as if building a nest when the impulses of attack and retreat are evenly balanced
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Fighting roosters often peck at the ground between bouts as though feeding
Displacement Behaviour Examples in People
One study involved a hidden video camera in a dentist's office waiting room. People waiting to have cavities filled showed all sorts of displacement activities, scratching their heads, stroking non-existent beards, wringing their hands, tugging at earlobes, flipping through magazines at one page per second, and so forth. People waiting for X-rays or teeth cleaning showed fewer of these activities. Like the squirrels approaching a human holding a nut, patients waiting to have cavities filled were caught between two contradictory impulses. They wanted to get the cavities filled, but they probably also wanted to leave. So they performed nervous activities.
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