Why do people joke about wanting to nibble on babies? Are they cannibals, psychopaths, or do they suffer from something called “cute aggression”? Most likely the latter.
First described by Yale researchers in 2015, cute aggression is actually pretty common and can encompass behaviors such as wanting to bite, nibble, squeeze, or smoosh the face of something extremely adorable. Studies have long shown that people who view photos of tiny, adorable things often react with extremely aggressive language.
Of course, this language does not translate into actual deeds.
Not content to just assume people are weird, scientists have now uncovered more information about what makes us say we want to smother and squish the things we find most endearing.
Katherine Stavropoulos, an assistant professor of special education at the University of California, Riverside, and a licensed clinical psychologist with a background in neuroscience, has conducted a formal study on the phenomenon by studying the brain’s electrical activity when subjects viewed cute images of animals and babies.
Using findings related to cute aggression, the new study backs up the hypothesis that these feelings may serve as a mechanism to prevent people from being overwhelmed (and thus incapacitated) by cute things. It’s basically what happens to your brain when you just can’t even.
In her article “’It’s so Cute I Could Crush It!’: Understanding Neural Mechanisms of Cute Aggression,” published in Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, Stavropoulos used surface-level electrical activity (EEG data) to gauge neural responses to a range of external stimuli deemed “cute.”
Her 54 participants ranged in age from 18–40 years and were shown four sets of images: cute babies, less cute babies, cute (baby) animals, and less cute (adult) animals. Both electrophysiological data and questionnaires were used to measure 1) how overwhelmed by positive emotions the subjects felt, 2) the approachability of the object viewed, 3) an appraisal of cuteness, and 4) feelings of caretaking experienced by the viewers.
Participants rated baby animals significantly higher than other stimuli.
Of course, subjects were told that their reactions would likely be in a normal range and any aggression noted would be understood as not meaning actual harm:
“We thought that if participants believed the point of the research was to understand aggressive impulses made with the intent to harm the cute thing, we would not obtain accurate or representative responses.”
Cuteness aggression is thought to be a way for the brain to regulate overwhelming positive emotions and caretaking desires. There is also evidence that the neural reward system is involved in people’s experiences of cute aggression.
Journalists have noted that this phenomenon is universal and that most languages have a word for this type of feeling - the Filipino language Tagalog, for example, has a word Gigil, which means gritting your teeth and trembling in an overwhelming situation.
Other studies have shown that cuteness aggression is felt far more acutely when people can't physically touch the cute thing they're seeing.
Ok, so humans are weird the world over. Why is this important?
This phenomenon does more than just explain our desire to seek out and squeal at kitten videos.
This may all sound fairly bizarre until you think of the ways that it can be used to manipulate us.
Who could use a great way to make you feel overwhelmed by something you can’t touch? People who want to sell you things, of course!
Cuteness is used to market all kinds of goods to you, from fashion to cereal to animated films. And what better way to engage with your easily manipulated audience on a deep, complex emotional level than to put a cute animal on something? Why does a polar bear sell us Coca-Cola? Why are interspecies friends selling us cell phones? Behold the beauty of Kleenex giving us a sob story of an unwanted animal before just briefly flashing their logo on the screen. We are suckers for a furry thing, especially if it’s little and presumably helpless. (Ironically, Budweiser, despite having one of the most popular Superbowl commercials in 2015, retired it’s “lost dog” commercial because puppies don’t actually help sell beer – exception noted.)
A Harvard psychology study published in Emotion Review in 2011 by Drs. Gary D. Sherman and Jonathan Haidt hypothesized that all sorts of emotions and rich mental lives are attributed to entities that people deem cute, especially if those people experience chronic loneliness or social disconnection. They’ll even anthropomorphize gadgets in order to feel more connected.
A person’s ability to make cute things part of their moral circle (that is, deemed worthy of one’s moral consideration) gives toy makers, animators, and roboticists, for example, an easy opening to manipulate those feelings.
Sherman and Haight noted that “Children, like adults, show a preference for cuteness, a fact which has been exploited by toy makers, video game designers and animators to great success.”
The researchers also cite two studies illustrating how characters and toys have undergone physical transformations over time to become more “cute.” Mickey Mouse, for example, “has undergone a physical transformation—in the direction of increasing cuteness—while simultaneously becoming less mischievous and more goodmannered.” Similarly, the generic teddy bear has become cuter in an effort to get children to interact with it (and presumably want one) more.
Still skeptical? This study shows that a robotic floor-scrubbing device was more likely to be given a name, talked to, and referred to as a he or she after subjects spent time viewing slide shows of baby animals.
So next time you see a baby animal or anything else that makes you want to cuddle it really hard, don’t be afraid of your aggressive feeling, but snuggle your wallet really hard instead.
