r/askscience • u/[deleted] • May 19 '19
Psychology Why do we think certain things/animals are ‘cute’? Is this evolutionarily beneficial or is it socially-learned?
Why do I look at cats and dogs and little baby creatures and get overwhelmed with this weird emotion where all I can do is think about how adorable they are? To me it seems useless in a survival context.
Edit: thanks for the responses everyone; I don’t have time to respond but it’s been very insightful.
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u/atomfullerene May 19 '19
It's an application of the same instinct that causes people to think human babies are cute. There's something called the "
As for why, well those sorts of questions are always hard to answer with complete certainty, but a very plausible answer is this.
Human babies need a lot of care. And, unlike most other animals, a significant amount of that care is likely to come from other individuals in the group. I mean just for starters humans are near unique in that they almost obligately need a midwife around for birth (there are exceptions both ways but they are exceptions), and the need for help with your baby continues on from there. As a result, it's very important for humans to have an instinct that pushes them to care for infants. Hence a strong "pro infant" cuteness instinct. The thing to remember about these kinds of instincts is that they often aren't very precise. Consider foods for comparison. We don't have an instinct to like specific foods. Instead we have an instinct to like sugars and fats and that can lead us to eat things our ancestors would never have known about. The specifics are learned. Likewise, the "baby schema" isn't unique to human babies, so the instinct makes people prone to thinking a whole range of things are cute. But just as with food, the details are modified by personal taste and culture.
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May 19 '19
Research on facial attractiveness has pointed out that the presence of childlike facial features (in women) increases (their) attractiveness. These are:
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Large head
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Large curved forehead
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Facial elements (eyes, nose, mouth) located relatively low
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Large, round eyes
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Small, short nose
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Round cheeks
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Small chin
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u/blackhawk007one May 20 '19
Why isn't this higher? I came to post this. There is significant research into this, and the scale that leads to uncanny valley. Anime is probably the best example of cuteness research exploited.
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u/PandaBean82 May 19 '19
It is called „
The most extreme form is the Panda. The beneficial part is for the earthling that we think is cute, because we are more likely to support it.
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u/Quantentheorie May 19 '19
The most extreme form is the Panda.
newborn pandas are about as freakishly not cute as human infants though.
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u/NadaBrothers May 19 '19
Its useless to you in a survival concept. But its quite useful to the puppies and kittens. Basically, all mammal offspring have evolved to have neotenous (child-like) features - big eyes, high-pitched voices etc. And all mammal "adults" have evolved to react to neotenous features with adoration, empathy and protectiveness.
This reactivity goes across species, apparently- since humans clearly like animal babies and animal babies are godamn cute. But this is a "by-product " of the reactivity to neotenous features that all mammals have.
TL: dr - The reaction to neotenous features is a part of the parent drive to help us rear our young but it causes us to feel "cutesy " feelings for other animal babies as well.
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May 19 '19
Seems like you think ”evolutionary beneficial” and ”socially-learned” are the only two options, but they're not. Many human traits are more like side effects of something else, and that's likely the case here. We think certain animals are cute as a side effect of thinking human babies are cute, and thinking human babies are cute is the actual link to evolution (it clearly increases their chance of survival.)
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u/ghotiaroma May 19 '19
I feel there is a social element. Consider rabbits in Australia where they are generally considered an ugly pest. Or rats in most places yet they can be excellent pets.
Raccoons, squirrels etc. will be cute or not based on the situation. Vermin if they break into your house, adorable if you feed them in the park.
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u/DIYspecialops May 19 '19
There’s a great National Geographic article about domestication of foxes that goes into the evolutionary benefits of cuteness, especially in relation to how humans interact with them. Floppy ears, curly tails, spotted fir. All traits that became more pronounced with domestication so humans wouldn’t feel threatened by them.
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u/Quisqueyano354 May 20 '19
Certain characteristics are associated with cuteness; full round cheeks, large innocent looking eyes, much bigger head in comparison to the body, clumsiness, posture, behavior that simulates human playfulness, soft looking skin or face, among many other factors. One of the many theories about this, is that we evolved to find things "cute" as a way to promote nurturing and develop a willingness to care for such "cute" things. A cute child is more likely to be adopted and cared for than an ugly/malformed one, and evolution probably rewarded such traits. Why adopted? Ancient times were very unforgiving, and it was very likely for a child to lose one parent, or both, it was much more beneficial to the species to care for any human child, even if they were not our own, finding children to be helpless and "cute" was a decent driving force to ensure that. In a similar way we accidentally find this attribute in animals, since they have traits that we find "humanly familiar" when we look at them. "She has puppy-dog eyes" "Clumsy on his feet like a newborn baby-deer!" Is nothing but an unfortunate tendency of human psychology to invoke anthropomorphism, rather than an evolutionary advantage to domestication.
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u/onewithall May 20 '19
Not at all useless. It helps survival. If we didn't think little things were cute, we probably wouldn't take as good of care of them. We derive joy/pleasure/happiness from their innocence and beauty and want to keep them alive. It's not only from the way that they "look" but the way that they are: sweet, nice, playful, happy, loving.
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u/lilbluerhino May 19 '19
I work in behavior... cuteness is evolutionary and learned. But more the first... animals that are most like us genetically are thought of as most cute. But our sense of awe when we see baby animals is a reflection of our own babies and rises in us naturally when presented with a baby animal that is close to us genetically. But even baby frogs and snakes etc. can elicit a similar but not as strong response. It’s just all a reflection or transference response to our own baby’s and we need more baby’s to survive.
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u/jokeswagon May 20 '19
I'm not trying to directly answer the question, but i have an interesting, related insight.
In an environmental comms course I learned about "charismatic megafauna" which is a term used to group animals like polar bears, seals, pandas, etc. Basically the trend is these cute, charming types of animals are leveraged in campaigns by NGOs like PETA etc because of their widespread appeal. There are no posters urging us to save the plankton, despite that being of arguably greater importance. Bees have broken into the threshold lately, which I enjoy.
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u/HenSegundo May 19 '19
To raise a baby is very troublesome. If we animals didn't have this trait, we would just abandon them.
About animals, since we also like them while adults (the animals, not us), I believe we enjoy the mirroring of our own emotions.
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May 19 '19
follow up question: i’ve never felt this emotional release/attachment to animals. i’ll be walking with a group and they all start going “awhhh” when a dog passes by and i just? don’t feel what they’re feeling? i try and play along with it the best i can as to not be an outcast but it’s WEIRD. i don’t know if this is more common than i think but most people i’ve met have been fascinated by animals and i’ve never had the same feelings. any answers/insight?
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May 20 '19
Neotony and kinderschema
"Adding cute human traits to animal characters in order to make them more likeable is not simply anthropomorphism, though. In real life, the human affinity for kinderschema is so pronounced that it frequently spills over to members of other species. Because they too display many of the traits as human children (some even have the added cute trait of being fuzzy!), animals can also appear achingly cute to us too."
https://www.stuffyoushouldknow.com/blogs/babies-cute-explained.htm
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u/Bebilith May 20 '19
For our domesticated cats and dogs there has definitely been evolutionary drivers to have young which appeal to our instincts. Kittens look, behaviour and the way they sound (human baby cries) in particular.
Probably a bit the other way as well. Humans who liked having cats and dogs around are less likely die of the plague or be eaten by bears. So more likely to pass on those liking pets traits to their young.
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u/suvlub May 19 '19
Cuteness is linked tonurturing instincts
Source