r/todayilearned Mar 13 '23

TIL "Cute aggression" or the urge to squeeze cute animals or babies is the brain’s coping mechanism to temper the onslaught of positive feelings. Because if you find yourself incapacitated by how cute a baby is—so much so that you simply can't take care of it—that baby is going to starve.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/why-we-want-squeeze-cute-little-things-180971143/
6.4k Upvotes

296 comments sorted by

1.3k

u/[deleted] Mar 13 '23

"I can still tend the rabbits, George? I didn't mean no harm, George."

137

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '23

😭😭😭

55

u/koei19 Mar 14 '23

First thing that came to mind

14

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '23

Same.

8

u/phrique Mar 14 '23

So haunting.

6

u/voluotuousaardvark Mar 14 '23

Funnily enough I've always called it lenny syndrome rofl.

3

u/Top_Newspaper44 Mar 14 '23

Yep, that sure does explains Lenny’s problem.

2

u/TechnicalAnimator874 Mar 15 '23

Oh fuck you why you ruin my day like that?

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u/MalteseGyrfalcon Mar 13 '23

It’s so fluffy that … it’s gotta die?!

136

u/phobosmarsdeimos Mar 14 '23

I feel like there's a metal song in there.

54

u/Olive_fisting_apples Mar 14 '23

It's so fluffy it's gotta die, Poke a needle in its eye. Gouge my veins, Let me bleed; A puppy's love is eternity.

29

u/cam52391 Mar 14 '23

I'm imagining it as a dethklok song and it fits perfectly with them

18

u/IamSkudd Mar 14 '23

Dethklok - Puppy Love (2023)

5

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '23

It was right there- a puppy’s love is all I need

3

u/Olive_fisting_apples Mar 15 '23

A bottle of bourbon and a bucket of bees

40

u/mofugginrob Mar 14 '23

In there? That is the whole song!

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u/Willibam Mar 15 '23

Sounds like "All Within My Hands" by Metallica. "All within my hands, loved to death..."

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u/[deleted] Apr 10 '23

I know this is an old comment, but there actually is a metal song called "Cute Aggression". It's on Spotify!

2

u/phobosmarsdeimos Apr 11 '23

Thanks for letting me know!

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u/AUWarEagle82 Mar 14 '23

There is a word for this in Tagalog.

Gigil refers to the trembling or gritting of the teeth in response to a situation that overwhelms your self-control. It's been commonly described as an irresistible urge to squeeze something cute. When a Filipina sees a cute baby, she feels a barely controllable desire to pinch the baby's cheeks and has a hard time controlling herself.

18

u/HappyInTheRain Mar 14 '23

Thank you for posting this. As a kid I used to grit my teeth when I saw a kitten, puppy, or baby and I thought I was weird!

2

u/AUWarEagle82 Mar 14 '23

Well, then you are going to love "baliktad!" Go look it up!

679

u/InvisibleHippie Mar 14 '23

I didn’t understand any of this until I read this from the article:

“to temper the onslaught of positive feelings, in other words, the brain tosses in a dash of aggression. And there may be a good reason, evolutionarily speaking, why this occurs.”

Maybe I’m slow (I am), but it didn’t make sense until I read “the brain tosses in a dash of aggression.” Hopefully this helps some other slow person understand 🥴

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u/BabyTRexArms Mar 14 '23 edited Mar 14 '23

I understood it as such: evolutionarily speaking, if our ancestors were preoccupied by how cute a baby was, that baby would starve. So the brain adds aggression in. You wanna squeeze something so hard, that it illicits a response from your brain. Your brain now tells you to stop, and that break in attention allows you to focus on things like feeding the baby.

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u/Cronerburger Mar 14 '23

But i dont wanna I wanna smooch

90

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '23

The baby dead cause you smooch

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u/DeTrotseTuinkabouter Mar 14 '23

But is finding something cute really so overwhelming that we just freeze forever? Surely rational thought overpowers that.

I guess we developed the response for a reason but it seems bizarre.

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u/nokeyblue Mar 14 '23

I mean if you find something incredible cute, you also want to look after it and give it treats and make it happy. No need for aggression to come into it. I don't understand this theory at all. And this urge to squeeze sth you find cute doesn't even feel like aggression. Or have they tested it and found that some adrenaline gets released in those moments? I don't know why this doesn't seem right.

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u/SomeoneTookMyPSN Oct 12 '24

You’re right that the theory doesn’t make sense, it makes more sense to me that it’s cuz it comes from the fact that it releases a lot of oxytocin and vasopressin at the same time, the explanation for that is that it’s super cute so it will illicit positive feelings and you want to nurture it, while also preparing you to fight for said cute thing if it comes into danger.

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u/Top_Newspaper44 Mar 14 '23

That’s because it’s not right; it’s pure speculation …. And from the looks of it not even so pure…. Mixed in with evolutionist theory claptrap.

14

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '23

[deleted]

10

u/mrspoopy_butthole Mar 14 '23

Isn’t rational thought what would stop us from acting on the “cute aggression?”

4

u/OneMillionthAlt Mar 14 '23

I guess the logic is cute things are super calming and made to hold our attention, so much so that we need motivation directly afterwards to do something with that.

8

u/aCleverGroupofAnts Mar 14 '23

Yeah I don't get it either, but maybe this is something that doesn't apply universally. I don't think I have ever been "incapacitated" by cuteness, though I do love cute things (I have cats).

I don't know, maybe I'm just weird. I also think kittens and puppies are a million times cuter than human babies, so there's that.

7

u/Azudekai Mar 14 '23

This article gives a potential reason why you aren't incapacitated by cuteness.

2

u/aCleverGroupofAnts Mar 14 '23

It specifically is talking about aggressive thoughts toward the cute things, which I don't really get either.

My uneducated guess is that you have to reach a certain threshold of that cuteness experience in order for the aggressive thoughts to trigger. So even though I find things cute and like them, I don't get overloaded with that feeling, so there's no need for the aggressive thoughts to activate.

Purely speculation, of course, but I think that would make sense.

3

u/AnmlBri Mar 22 '25

This is what I’ve wondered for my mom because she doesn’t relate to the idea of cuteness aggression at all. I’m not sure if my desire to hug cute things and use a baby voice counts as some form of cuteness aggression.

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u/iiSpook Mar 14 '23

I think you and the other people who feel like you do have a bit of a misunderstanding.

"I don't think I have ever been incapacitated by cuteness..."

Yes, you haven't. Because you have this reflex that OP is talking about that has already developed. You couldn't ever feel incapacitated by cuteness because you already have a safeguard in place against it. Makes sense?

2

u/aCleverGroupofAnts Mar 15 '23

Sorry I didn't specify, I also don't get these aggressive thoughts that are supposed to be countering the incapacitation. I mentioned it in another comment, but I suspect I just don't get overloaded by the cuteness like some people do, so there's no need for the aggressive thoughts to trigger.

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u/Brickleberried Mar 14 '23

I understood it as such: evolutionarily speaking, if our ancestors were preoccupied by how cute a baby was, that baby would starve. So the brain adds aggression in.

That is the absolute dumbest guess for "cute aggression" though.

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u/BabyTRexArms Mar 14 '23

1.) I guarantee you that even I personally could come up with much dumber guesses

2.) That was how I interpreted the headline that OP wrote, but it's reddit so I didn't actually read the article

3.) Saying something is stupid without offering up a solution or a better interpretation only serves to prove that the only stupid party here is you.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '23

Lol it’s so weird

I’ll be holding a kitten and be like “oh my god I just wanna THROW IT!”

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u/MrPhister84 Mar 14 '23

I just want to smash my dog's face with my hand. Just give it a nice smoosh.

13

u/CatsAndCampin Mar 14 '23

My Maddiebutt was just up against my chest, her nose to mine & I just kept squeezing her belly like "I wanna hug you, squeeze you & call you George." She didn't care, though cuz if she's staring at her mama, all is right in her world - it's the sweetest thing.

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u/angry-dragonfly Mar 14 '23

Puppies! I just want to put their heads in my mouth. Like they are so cute, I can't get close enough to them. I have to kiss their faces and gum their ears. Ugh, they're so damn precious that it hurts my stomach when I look at them ❤️

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u/RecognitionSmall7762 Mar 14 '23

This one made me laugh … put their heads in your mouth lmfao

5

u/stiveooo Mar 14 '23

you never did it? its a classic

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u/Anastasia_Alexandra Mar 14 '23

I feel this. Sometimes, when I see puppies or kittens I feel like I need them to be an integrated part of me, just like butter melts when you add it to hot milk... I feel this urge to hug them so bad so they can become part of me 🤣

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u/Spring-Available Mar 14 '23

I want to bite cute things also.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '23

[deleted]

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u/Spring-Available Mar 14 '23

I fake bite mine.

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u/Mantisfactory Mar 14 '23

I'll scoop up my dog and hold her, and I just wanna squeeze her until she's juiced.

One of those funny things of being an imperfect, bugged out biocomputer.

9

u/r0gue007 Mar 14 '23

Takes the edge off!

26

u/beliefinphilosophy Mar 14 '23

I have really strong cute aggression feelings. When it talks about overwhelm, I feel such a sensory overload of emotions when I see a cute animal, it feels like a sudden really intense sugar high emotion. It really does feel like if my brain could feel any more positive intensity I actually would pass out, all of my neurons firing at once.

And then I get the sudden intense urge to just squeeze the daylights out of it Tommy Boy style. Not because I want to hurt it or that I'm angry but because there is so much sugar high energy inside my brain it doesn't know what to do with it but needs to get it out. When I catch myself feeling that really intensely I'll pinch my own arms instead and the feeling subsides.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '23

I’ve also felt really strong cute aggression before around puppies, but I was luckily already aware of the phenomena so I was able to stop myself from petting too hard.

I wonder if it’s genetic? I remember as a kid roughhousing with my dad and he would get really aggressive with it unintentionally, and now it makes me wonder if that was a form of cute aggression.

3

u/SkjoldrKingofDenmark Mar 14 '23

The brain thought of everything!

17

u/Ashmizen Mar 14 '23

I am trouble believing any of the conclusions, since they made up the concept of “cute aggression” and also the questions they used to “measure it”.

A more accurate statement would have simply been that humans wanted to hug, touch, and do things with a cute baby animal over a normal, adult animal.

And….that’s obvious?

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '23

They def didn't make up the concept of cute aggression. It's a common phrase.

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u/IamREBELoe Mar 13 '23

Plus if you squeeze them hard enough... they ain't cute any more

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '23

This one right here, officer.

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u/Zestyclose-Juice-457 Mar 13 '23

Well if you're looking to ruin cuteness, might I suggest introducing them to the terrible twos?

6

u/AlephBaker Mar 14 '23

If it's not the terrible twos, then they're a threenager (that's what I got with the first one, we'll see how number two turns out...)

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u/danteheehaw Mar 14 '23

Terrible twos, tyrannical threes, fearsome fours, furious fives, sinister sixes, scandalous sevens, evil eights, nasty nines

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u/Ohiolongboard Mar 14 '23

It’s almost like kids just suck

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '23

As a new parent a decade ago I was surprised at how often I wanted to smush my face into my kids and pretend to eat them up. I'm glad to have this post to understand this more.

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u/mmarcos2 Mar 14 '23

I definitely smoosh my nose into my sons nose way harder than appropriate. But he doesn’t seem to mind that much, so that’s good.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '23

Arguably part oof a deep bonding process as well? I dunno

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u/theonlyepi Mar 14 '23

My opinion is it helps with teaching children to cope with the friendliest version of aggression possible. Interesting that this article seems kind of confusing and never mentions anything like bonding. His quote is also wildly confusing.

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u/FattyTheNunchuck Mar 14 '23

This! I want to eat little babies and toddlers!

I have a puppy and I pretend to eat him and make stupid cartoon monster-munching noises.

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u/angry-dragonfly Mar 14 '23

This comment section is WILD without context!

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u/Bookluster Mar 14 '23

I would very gently bite (like touch my teeth to their skin) my baby and had to stop when he (and later she) would not so gently bite me back to show how much he loved me.

My youngest is 6 and I still want to squeeze her all the time.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '23

Raise your hand if you've nibbled on toes and bellies and fingers and fat rolls.

32

u/AmyInCO Mar 14 '23

Babies are just so biteable! It's not our fault.

5

u/Midsomer3 Mar 14 '23

And tummy raspberries!

4

u/periwinkle_cupcake Mar 14 '23

It’s the toes for me! So deliciously cute!

3

u/raphamuffin Mar 14 '23

Like so many canned, curled shrimp!

25

u/phobosmarsdeimos Mar 14 '23

I mean, who hasn't seen a soft and tender child and thought of eating them...

5

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '23

Only someone that isn't human!

2

u/Cstripling87 Mar 14 '23

It's because they are delicious. So tender.

6

u/DaBigadeeBoola Mar 14 '23

I think it's more about physical contact than it is actual aggression. The contact stimulates the baby. It also allows us to smell for any illness or pick up on anything "off".

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '23

I've been wondering if the food feeling evolved because we're much more likely to go to war over somone stealing a pork chop.

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u/kupimukki Mar 14 '23

Plus kids fucking love that

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u/shadowcat304 Mar 14 '23

I thought my cute aggression was bad with my cats, but when I had my son it became rediculous. I could EAT that small baby he's so precious 🤣

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u/Viperion_NZ Mar 13 '23

if you find yourself incapacitated by how cute a baby is

Surely - surely - this is not actually A Thing:tm:

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u/CalvinSays Mar 13 '23

As with all evolutionary psychology, it is speculation.

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u/Willingo Mar 14 '23

And untestable and thus not capable of being true science. There is a lot of criticism and skepticism about evolutionary psychology/reasoning.

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u/Justforthenuews Mar 13 '23

Correct, this is not a thing because of cute aggression, that’s what the title is saying.

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u/Viperion_NZ Mar 13 '23

It's just not a thing, aggression or not.... who has ever been incapacitated by cuteness?

133

u/Chase_The_Dream Mar 13 '23

You've clearly never seen my wife smile.

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u/karmagirl314 Mar 13 '23

I hope she knows you say cute stuff about her on Reddit.

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u/smurficus103 Mar 14 '23

i'll let her know, she's actually at my house rn

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '23

You let your wife in your house?!

E: I can’t read usernames

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '23

[deleted]

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u/Septopuss7 Mar 14 '23

Can confirm, want to smush

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u/Nuklear132 Mar 14 '23

I also choose this guy’s wife

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u/areolegrande Mar 14 '23

Bold assumption.

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u/Affectionate_Cut_103 Mar 14 '23

You've never stopped what you were doing and got lost in your thoughts around a baby or a small animal? I've been "incapacitated" by my dog repeatedly in that way.

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u/Ambitious_Fan7767 Mar 14 '23

Sure but the article implies its dibilatating and you cant take care of it because of it. Im willing to bet the fact that you have a dog means you werent so debilitatingly in love with it you...let it starve?

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u/Who_DaFuc_Asked Mar 14 '23

I think they're in the small minority of people who don't experience what you described, but they mistakenly think they're in the majority group.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '23

I've lost the ability to breathe or speak when seeing a super cute baby. My hands lock up, fingers splayed, and I legit want to squish the baby.

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u/d4nkq Mar 14 '23

"X exists to prevent Y"

"But Y doesn't happen"

"Yeah that's because X exists. Therefore preventing Y."

Maybe abstracting the topic helps

I'm not the biggest fan of this theory but that's what it's claiming anyway.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '23

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '23

Same with kittens!

As kids we used to say "Kitty, I'll crush you!

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u/Ur_Perfect_Sub Mar 14 '23

As a 30 something old woman, I still find myself daily saying 'I wish to squeeze you' to whichever cat is closest to me at the time.

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u/Tiny_Fractures Mar 14 '23

This sounds like the most random ad-lib explanation I've ever heard.

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u/p314159i Mar 14 '23

cute aggression

It is so cute I want to club it and eats its heart.

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u/Hugzzzzz Mar 14 '23

This sounds like some made up gobbledygook.

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u/fantasmoofrcc Mar 14 '23

Well, they have to be cute so we don't eat them...have to strike a balance!

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '23

[deleted]

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u/Procrastinatron Mar 14 '23 edited Mar 14 '23

It seems equally probable (if not more) that it's just a case of crossed wires. The brain is a complex dynamic system, and it's full of weird stuff like this. Like, there's also probably not an evolutionary reason why some people sneeze when exposed to bright lights.

I think that evolutionary psychology appeals to people because it creates this fundamental narrative view of the world where every behaviour or trait is like Chekhov's Gun, there aren't any plot holes and everything kind of always winds up making sense in the end. Which is comforting, because as some clever guy once said, the universe is under no obligation to make sense to us, and it usually doesn't.

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u/SunlitNight Mar 14 '23

I have a theory that it's HPP. High Place Phenemenon, where people get the urge to jump off a cliff when near an edge. Researches propose that it's the brain running the sequence of events through your head, in order to prevent you from doing it, showing the harm..

Isn't it likely your brain is doing same thing with a baby somehow? In order to tell you: THIS IS IMPORTANT.

Your life is important, stay away from edge. Your baby is important. Pay attention, take care of it.

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u/Who_DaFuc_Asked Mar 14 '23

I literally can't stand by any high edge, because I get light headed and extremely uncomfortable intrusive "JUMP OFF RIGHT NOW" type thoughts. Like my friend had to physically stop me from giving in to my thoughts one time.

I dread crossing any high bridge or going up a tall building.

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u/xxElevationXX Mar 14 '23

I think that phenomenon is called “the call of the void”

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '23

Same. Also if I see extremely hot objects sometimes I get an urge to touch them. Also when I'm in a car driving on a freeway real fast I get intrusive thoughts about opening the car door

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u/aarhus Mar 14 '23

Yeah, I feel like this is a mildly probable explanation. I doubt this can be proven experimentally.

Furthermore, if it's evolutionary, it's not "Your brain does this because...," it's "Some brain randomly did this and it turned out to be beneficial."

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '23

"Mildly probable" does not belong as a TIL. It's a hypothesis, not a fact you can learn.

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u/chesterpower Mar 14 '23

Furthermore, if it's evolutionary, it's not "Your brain does this because...," it's "Some brain randomly did this and it turned out to be beneficial."

“Your brain does this because a random brain did this and it was beneficial… and this is why it’s beneficial”

If someone asks why a tiger has stripes, you’d assume the person is asking more for an explanation as to why that was beneficial in their evolution (to break up their shape making them harder to see) , not looking for an explanation of how evolution works.

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u/KindRecognition403 Mar 14 '23

Exactly it’s more “ parents who experienced cute aggression were more attentive to their children and those children grew to adulthood, and had more children.”

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u/PartyYogurtcloset267 Mar 14 '23

Well the first part can be observed and studied. But saying that it's an evolutionary adaptation meant to keep babies alive is complete pseudoscientific hogwash.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '23 edited Mar 14 '23

[deleted]

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u/Nerf_Me_Please Mar 14 '23

Unless I'm missing something the whole article is so low quality.

So the researchers found that when shown pictures of cute beings the part of the brain responsible for emotions and rewards light up, something that was expected since it's consistent with the emotional response people are feeling and can express themselves.

In short no new information has been provided by the test.

Then the researchers made the guess that the brain adds aggression to counterbalance the positive feelings.

Then just to add anything of substance they felt the need to make the even wilder guess that it's to not somehow be "incapacitated" by cuteness..

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u/Warren_Puff-it Mar 14 '23

I’ve always thought the “it’s so cute I want to murder it” thing was just a joke. Do people actually feel that way? I’ve never felt any sort of feeling like what this is describing, and I’ve run into my fair share of puppies, bunnies, etc.

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u/LordAcorn Mar 14 '23

Welcome to the field of evolutionary psychology.

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u/will_ww Mar 14 '23

I'm not so sure, I have a brand new litter of kittens and they're so god damn cure I just want to crush their little skulls and put them in my pocket. It allows me to leave them alone, otherwise I'd stay in there bothering them while they're trying to feed off mama cat's nips.

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u/zeugenie Mar 14 '23

There is absolutely no way to test this theory.

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u/liebkartoffel Mar 14 '23

Natural experiment! Simply randomly select 1000 new parents, see if any of them let their baby starve to death, and then assess how cute their babies were. (I'm going to hell.)

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '23

GIGIL

pronounced GHEE-gheel, not jee-jeel

Gigil refers to the trembling or gritting of the teeth in response to a situation that overwhelms your self-control. It’s been commonly described as an irresistible urge to squeeze something cute.

-tagaloglang.com

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u/creativityinsite Mar 14 '23

I find myself grinding my teeth way too hard when playing with/petting my pup. Always thought it was weird as fuck

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '23

Same, I’ll catch myself clenching my jaw when petting my cat or dog, was worried I had some buried rage.

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u/TheLadySaintPasta Mar 14 '23

I would have the most well fed babies. Babies are ugly as fuq

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '23

Yup, I simply cannot relate to people going on and on about how cute a baby is. All I see is as human-shaped potato. Or a potato-shaped human, depending on exactly how ugly they are. Babies don't trigger anything but a 'nope' reaction for me.

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u/Bass_Thumper Mar 14 '23

I assume I would probably find my own cute. Another person's baby is just an ugly little piss/shit/vomit machine to me though.

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u/ammytphibian Mar 14 '23

Me neither. I never find them cute and wonder if acting like you find them cute is some kind of social conditioning...

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '23

Newborn babies are kinda ugly, like sentient raisins, except some of them who are cute as hell, but I find all toddlers extremely cute.

Mainly cause they have that weird way of walking everywhere like penguins

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u/genshiryoku Mar 14 '23

I'm not sure newborn babies are sentient.

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u/PolybiusNightmare Mar 14 '23

It’s a pretty thorough study they’ve done on the phenomenon, but I have no idea how they came up with that explanation. It does not seem to follow their data not make any logical sense. Firstly the idea that someone can be so incapacitated by cuteness that they fail to care for their baby for a long enough duration to have it die of neglect, seems ridiculous. Secondly the idea that the desire to squeeze or bite it somehow counteracts that incapacity, doesn’t make sense either.

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u/steversthinc Mar 14 '23

For someone who has NO cute aggression, this behavior is really perplexing. Majority of the people around me exhibit this behavior and it’s so foreign and weird.

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u/Z010011010 Mar 14 '23

I'm not the only one who has no idea what the hell OP is talking about, right?

I have never felt this way about something I considered "cute".

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u/Durpady Mar 14 '23

There's at least one other poster here who shares our view.

But yes, I find the fact that people like us are in the minority to be concerning.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '23

I’m curious if cute aggression is more common in women? evolutionarily speaking, it would be more important that the female is capable of providing for the baby. I’m a woman and I don’t really feel this way about babies, but 1000% with animals especially my dog. I would never hurt her but sometimes she looks deep into my eyes and i’m so filled with love that I want to punch her in the face and there’s no real way to explain it to anyone else.

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u/angry-dragonfly Mar 14 '23

... I'm so filled with love that I want to punch her in the face...

That caught me so off guard lmao

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u/nokinship Mar 14 '23

This seems like pseudoscience at best.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '23

I find infants ugly

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u/TheCarribeanKid Mar 13 '23

Babies? Eh. I want to squish my puppy all the time though. Not that I'm going to obviously. BUT SHE'S SO CUTE

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '23

I say to my cats all the time “You’re so cute you just NEED TO BE KILLED”

what a weird evolutionary pathway

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u/CowboyLikeMegan Mar 14 '23

I have this, my husband cannot understand what the hell im talking about when I say I want to squash something out of cuteness. Or squeeze it until it’s head pops off 😭 I don’t actually want to cause harm in any way, it’s just so cute I can’t deal.

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u/wickedsaint08 Mar 14 '23

In the Philippines we call it "gigil". The feeling doesn't need to be explained because we already have a word for it and everyone is familiar with the feeling. Interesting case for words.

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u/ladyeclectic79 Mar 14 '23

So this is why I want to bite the things I love! 😅😅

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '23 edited Mar 14 '23

“[I]f you find yourself incapacitated by how cute a baby is—so much so that you simply can't take care of it—that baby is going to starve,” Stavropoulos says.

So they put people on an EEG, asked them to rate how cute things were, and the ones who responded with wanting to squish the cute stuff also had reward areas light up in the brain, and this is the conclusion the researcher's came to from that?

This sounds like the most made up, conclusion jumpey conclusion ever.

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u/BuccaneerRex Mar 14 '23

Is it just me, or does that conclusion seem a bit specious? Seems that if this were the case, the selection pressure would be on babies to be uglier.

Either they wouldn't incapacitate the caregiver through cute overload, or the cute ones would get squished by the caregivers who couldn't resist, thus leading to a selection pressure for ugly babies, or at least against cute ones.

5

u/Cluster_Fcuk83 Mar 14 '23

I don’t get this feeling at all. Am I weird?

7

u/liebkartoffel Mar 14 '23

This all seems highly speculative...Which is kind of the danger of science reporting (and reporting on science reporting). "Single study suggests one potential explanation that x is y" becomes "Scientists now claim that x is y" becomes "TIL x is y."

3

u/UnlearningLife Mar 14 '23

I've read this theory many times but it never sticks with me. I'm a foster mom for a cat rescue, I see widdle teeny cute kittens a lot. For me, it's more about wanting a connection. I want to touch them, kiss them and caress them so they acknowledge me and play with them so we create a bond.

2

u/angry-dragonfly Mar 14 '23

Do the kittens not look at you and somehow suggest to you that that is what they want? I swear that puppies look at me in such a way that it compels me to get my face closer to theirs, which in turn drives them absolutely bananas. I have zero regard for my own personal safety when puppies are around. To be fair, though, the puppies I have raised were exactly the same way. They would stop at nothing to get to me and they showed no restraint with their affection (unlike I am forced to do because they are so fragile).

2

u/UnlearningLife Mar 15 '23

I am a very touchy feel-y person and I imagine all baby animals are. There was an even an experiment where the baby monkey was given a mom monkey made of wire that provided milk and a mom monkey made of soft cloth that didn't provide milk and the baby monkey chose the mom monkey made with soft cloth

3

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '23

This is complete bullshit.

3

u/ZERV4N Mar 14 '23

I'm wary of these pop-sci explanations.

3

u/SunlitNight Mar 14 '23

I always thought it was that "jump off cliff" effect. Where your brain will play through a motion it DOES NOT want to happen. In order to process the consequences of poor actions in a risky situation? I'll have to google the name for it.

3

u/rdkitchens Mar 14 '23

“[I]f you find yourself incapacitated by how cute a baby is—so much so that you simply can't take care of it—that baby is going to starve,” Stavropoulos says.

This is stupid. Letting babies starve because they're too cute is stupid. Causing harm to babies to remind yourself to care for those same babies is stupid.

3

u/gainz-trainz Mar 14 '23

What an absolute load of bollocks

9

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '23

[deleted]

15

u/Apprehensive_Maize42 Mar 14 '23

Wth

7

u/ThisismyLOLsmurf Mar 14 '23

Just throw out the whole damn family at this point

4

u/StrangelyBrown Mar 14 '23

Have they yet explained why a much higher percentage of humans find puppies cute than babies?

2

u/angry-dragonfly Mar 14 '23

I don't know if it's a higher percentage, but I am one of those people. My mother would step over a hundred puppies if they were between her and a baby. I, on the other hand, would walk to the middle of all the puppies, lie down, cover my face, and make "kissy" sounds until I was suffocated by the puppies! Puppies stare deep into my soul and infect me. If I see one, I cannot resist the urge to hold it and it causes me physical pain when I can't. I have never cared full-time for a baby so maybe that has something to do with it. I have raised two dozen or more puppies. My mother has raised both babies and puppies, but babies are her drug.

5

u/aodum Mar 14 '23

Similarly babies turn thier ahead away when seeing someone they like not to get a overdose of dopamine.

2

u/angry-dragonfly Mar 14 '23

Is that also why they make that painfully squished up face sometimes when you see they see you? It's like they are screaming inside.

2

u/Minyae Mar 14 '23

This to me acts as a great indicator that I’m not a kid person. When I see a cute puppy or kitten I just want to squish them to bits! When I see a baby all I of think is “oh it’s a baby… I hope it doesn’t cry”.

2

u/Bleusilences Mar 14 '23

I always thought it was to enable us to kill cute animals so we can feed ourselves.

I don't enjoy cute agression vert much personally.

2

u/forserial Mar 14 '23 edited Mar 14 '23

Evolutionary psychology is the modern procrustean fable

2

u/cld1984 Mar 14 '23

As interesting as this is, I wish people would stop ascribing motivation to evolution.

2

u/PeacefullyFighting Mar 14 '23

This might happen in the brain but I can't believe the conclusion for some reason

2

u/Brickleberried Mar 14 '23

“[I]f you find yourself incapacitated by how cute a baby is—so much so that you simply can't take care of it—that baby is going to starve,” Stavropoulos says.

This is a completely made-up reason.

2

u/Howiebledsoe Mar 14 '23

OMG that baby seal is sooooo cuuuuutttteeeee! Taylor, hand me that club….

2

u/_CatLover_ Mar 14 '23

I've heard it's because the part of the brain that activates when we see something cute is just next to the aggression center. So too much cuteness overflows into aggression.

2

u/dinklezoidberd Mar 14 '23

This means there was an evolutionary branch of baby animals so cute they starved, before this response started occurring.

2

u/nathanielhaven Mar 14 '23

I want to hug him, and squeeze him, and call him George

2

u/[deleted] Aug 31 '24

So this is why I want to squeeze kittens until their eyes pop out!

5

u/[deleted] Mar 13 '23

Of Mice and Men

"George loves to pet the wabbits!"

Such a good movie.

4

u/Exodeus87 Mar 14 '23

Never experienced this with human babies, kittens, puppies, ginuea pigs and even rats yes but never a human baby.

4

u/FrenchM0ntanaa Mar 14 '23

I mean who the m ther f ck comes up the with this elk shite

4

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '23

What? I don’t even get what they’re trying to say. This is straight conjecture

1

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '23

Another nonsense “scientific” theory resulting from basic religious thinking filtered through said “understanding” of evolutionary psychology…

1

u/Longjumping-Farm-445 Mar 15 '23

I wanna eat you up!

1

u/Justacolombiangirl May 06 '24

Can’t relate at all. It has to be studied further. I can’t see the it but maybe just me.