Cuteness Brings Out Our Aggressive Side

Psychologists have recently reported on a fascinating study which shows that seeing something unbearably cute brings out an aggressive instinct in most people. We have known about a ‘cute response’ for a long while, but this destructive side is something new.

Think back to the last time you saw something cute. For me it was a baby I saw at a friend’s house yesterday. Now, I have seen cute babies before. I am sure you have too. But this baby was… it was just… argh! It was so cute!

It is the feeling you get when something is so cute that you have speak through clenched teeth just because you just cannot bear its cuteness and you want to cuddle it.

We have all heard someone say, ‘You are so cute, I could eat you all up’. Well the reasons for these emotions have never been fully understood until now. In some people, it is a very strong emotion and some cultures, such as in the Philippines even have a word, gigil, for that feeling where you just want to squish something.

Now, psychology researchers have presented a paper at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology annual conference which looks at just this phenomenon. Can something be so cute that it brings out the aggressive side in someone?

What is Cuteness?

Cuteness is often defined as something which is innocently attractive. Many people find that babies are cute. It is their big baby eyes and bigger heads and the innocent expressions on their faces which get me every time. Scientists have even developed a ‘cute index’ to describe exactly how attractive something is based on large eyes, a big baby head and chubby cheeks.

There are a lot of triggers for this response and they vary from person to person. So, while one person may find a kitten unbelievably cute, someone else may just not like cats at all and could even be turned off by seeing one. Also, apparently, post-menopausal women respond less well to babies than their younger counterparts.

In a way, it is obvious why we would find babies cute and feel protective over them because it is an excellent means of keeping our young ones safe. Babies are hard work! They take a lot of looking after. So it is a good thing that just looking at them already makes us feel more positive. There is a reward center in the brain which lights up when someone only looks at a baby.

And in a similar way, anything which has those baby characteristics can be cute and elicit the same responses from us. Bizarrely, many  different types of animals can be made to look cute with the addition of babyish features, and we have all found ourselves falling for kittens and puppies with huge eyes. There is even a ‘cuteness factor’ – a measure of just how cute something is. But do we actually feel aggressive in the presence of cuteness?

Cute Aggression

To test the theory behind cute aggression, the team, led by Rebecca Dyer and Oriana Aragon, conducted two separate experiments on different sets of volunteers. Firstly, they wanted to find out whether seeing something cute really does bring out an aggressive side to people.

One hundred and nine research subjects were shown images of things which were cute, funny or neutral – not cute or funny. Then they were asked to rate the images according to sayings or expressions such as, ‘I just can’t handle it’, or whether they felt like squeezing something or even just saying ‘Gr’ out loud.

In a second experiment, ninety subjects were given a piece of bubble wrap to hold and, once again, shown a mixture of cute, funny and neutral pictures. They were asked to pop as many bubbles as they wanted while looking at the pictures.

What surprised the researchers most was that the people who were looking at the cuter pictures actually popped more bubbles than the ones who were looking at the funny or neutral pictures. Pictures of cute little bunnies and kittens made them react more strongly. Those looking at the cute slideshow popped an average of 120 bubbles, while it was only 100 for the funny pictures and 80 for the neutral.

Do You Feel More Aggressive In The Presence Of Cuteness?

While this study is based on a tiny number of subjects, only 109 in the first experiment and 90 in the second, many people will identify with that feeling of wanting to squish something that they find cute. And many of us will vividly remember standing, terrified, in front of an aunt or grandparent who declares that they want to ‘eat us’! But why does this phenomenon occur?

In psychology there are many different explanations:

• One theory is that there may be an overspill of emotions. In a similar way, some people have experienced crying when they are so overcome with joy that the feeling becomes unbearable and tears start to flow. The over-protective feelings brought on by looking at something cute might spill over into aggression.

• Another idea is that when we something like a helpless baby, we immediately feel protective over it. So both emotions are felt at the same time: love and a feeling of aggressive protection.

• An interesting idea is that an adult can sometime show a feeling of false aggression to a cute child to show him who is boss. A playful pinch on the cheek can show dominance and make sure that the message is: ‘Yes, you are cute, I’m in charge’.

Complex Reactions

The human mind is a complex entity. What is more, no two people can be absolutely guaranteed to react the same way to the same stimulus. So, to study it, a range of different assumptions must be made. It could be possible that where the researchers see ‘aggression’ the subjects are only showing an extreme form of positive reaction which only looks like a bad vibe. On the surface, although this research might not seem so important, it could have some very important implications when scientists want to discover why some mothers do not react positively to their babies and may even suffer from post-natal depression.