When you see a sweet baby, a puppy or a little kitten, you immediately want to come up and make the sound of “awww” with frowning eyebrows, and the first sentence that comes to your mind is “so sweet that I could nibble it”. Such a reaction, although automatic, seems quite strange on reflection. However, experts reassure that this is perfectly normal and has a scientific explanation.
- Both babies and small animals or cartoon characters have similar physical characteristics that make them cute and adorable
- Young children are also associated with vulnerability and the need to care
- The combination of these associations makes when something is sweet, we want to protect it
- However, our gestures, facial expressions and statements often seem quite aggressive
- The explanation is the so-called dimorphic expression. It is she who makes that when we say that we want to bite something cute, we do not actually feel aggression, but only express it
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Our brain really likes it when we look at little, cute things. As a reward, it releases dopamine, a chemical that makes us feel intensely happy. This is why children and puppies frequently appear in advertisements. The sight of them makes us more willing to devote our time to them, and ultimately spend money. Why is this happening?
Both babies and small animals or cartoon characters have similar physical characteristics that make the creature appear “cute”. In 1949, the ethologist Konrad Lorenz called these features the child’s schema (Kindchenschema). Belong to them: big head (in relation to the size of the body), bigger forehead, big eyes, round cheeks, little chin i small nose. Adults and animals with small eyes and long mouths no longer produce the same reaction.
We have a need for protection
We react completely differently to the sight of children or small animals than to adults. In addition to the fact that we find them sweet, in our opinion they are also defenseless, which makes us much more willing to look after them.. To understand why this is happening, we need to turn to evolutionary biology.
«If we think about evolution, our goal as a species is to survive and pass on our genes» — explains Dr. Sandra Pimentel, a psychologist at Montefiore Medical Center in New York, in an interview with MPR News. The way to pass on genes is, of course, to give birth to children, whom we have to look after at a later date. At the back of our minds, however, we have a thought about how “cute” babies are. The combination of these two associations means that when we think something is sweet, we want to protect it at the same time.
So why, when we have a need to protect, our reactions seem to be quite aggressive?
«You are so sweet I could eat you!»
Tears of happiness or laughter during stressful situations are the so-called dimorphic expression. It describes situations in which we express something completely different from what we actually feel. It is the dimorphic expression that is the cause of our rather unusual reactions to sweets, such as clenching our fists, gritting our teeth, or the common “I could eat you” or the sound of “awww” and exaggerated frowning.
According to Dr. Oriana Aragon, a psychologist at Clemson University in South Carolina, negative reactions used to express ourselves help us moderate the intensity of our emotions. They counteract the intensity of positive emotions, thus allowing us to achieve emotional balance.
There are some indications that when people express themselves this way, they are better able to handle strong emotions
— explains Dr. Aragon in an interview with MPR News.
This is why when we say we want to bite something cute, we don’t actually feel aggression, we only express it.
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