The Desire to Squeeze and Hug Cute Things Comes From the Same Place In Your Brain As Aggression

Have you ever seen a puppy walking down the street that was so cute it compelled you to go down on your knees to squeeze it? Or a baby so adorable you were forced to pinch its cheek and squeal “you’re so cute I could just eat you right up”? These are both examples of average reactions to what is universally deemed as cute; however, it is easy to see that there is some underlying aggression in these actions, i.e. squeezing, pinching, and vocal desires of flesh consumption.

New research from two psychologists at Yale explored this phenomena of aggression in the face of overwhelming cuteness, and aptly deemed it “cuteness aggression”. Rebecca Dyer and Oriana Aragon’s exploration involved the use of three different sets of slide shows, which showed either animals labeled as cute, funny, or normal. They then asked participants to watch said slideshow while holding sheets of bubble wrap. Dyer and Aragon used these sheets of bubble wrap to simulate and or alleviate the aggressive desire that people have to squeeze/hold cute things. It was found that the participants who watched the cute animal slideshow popped more of the bubbles on their sheet then those watching the funny or normal animals. This is in accordance with the definition of “cuteness aggression”.

However, it seems a bit of a stretch to equate the action of popping bubbles on a sheet of bubble wrap to the desire to squeeze something we define as cute. Furthermore, while their research did seem to find a correlation between aggression and cuteness, they offered no definite answer to why this phenomena occurs. So why is it that in the face of the “cute” we are all overwhelmed with a drive to aggression? Could it be related to our desire to also protect the things we see as cute? Or perhaps it is simply an overload of emotions that cause us to react with aggression. It seems for now that these questions will remain as food for thought.

You can also listen to my podcast on this topic here:

-Cassey

References

Arnold, C. (2013, July 1). Cuteness inspires aggression. Retrieved from http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cuteness-inspires-aggression/

Brooks, A., & Van der Zwan, R. (2013, September 9). Explainer: what is cute aggression? Retrieved from http://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-cute-aggression-16884

Nelson, R. J., & Trainor, B. C. (2007). Neural mechanisms of aggression. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 8, 536-546. doi:10.1038/nrn2174

Pappas, S. (2013, January 21). ‘I wanna eat you up!’ Why we go crazy for cute. Retrieved from http://www.livescience.com/26452-why-we-go-crazy-for-cuteness.html

Edited by: Zoe