CUTENESS OVERLOAD

Moo Deng the baby hippo, Biscuits the seal and Pesto the giant, baby penguin have taken social media by storm, it’s hard not to doom scroll without seeing a cute critter or a few hundred flooding the feeds lately. The real question is why do we find these animal babies so cute? Why do they light up parts of our brains and emotions like they do, even though they don’t resemble our own young? The brains’ perception of cuteness even distinguishes the young from old i.e. animals such as lions that are dangerous and terrifying as an adults, but as cubs we associate them with the (relatively) harmless domestic kittens that we know and love. The now very viral “Can I pet that dawg?” video that has spawned thousands of memes is another example of how we view animals great and small and even feel the need to cuddle them even if they’re wild and pose a danger to us, it’s certainly part of the brain that sometimes blurs the lines on reality and lets us fantasize about what it would be like to hug a bear.

Some of our favourite movies humanise animals and add to the cuteness confusion such as the Lion King, Dumbo, Happy Feet, Babe and Finding Nemo to name a few. Turns out, there is a very good and very real reason why we are drawn to baby animals and why we often find them so irresistible, and its deeply rooted in our psychology. David Barash, a psychology professor at the University of Washington believes that the reason may be because “People are also animals, and our infants and young children – like the infants and young of most species – have certain consistent traits.” The psychology behind it isn’t as new as it may seem either. In 1943 an Australian zoologist called Konrad Lorenz was the first one (on record) to make the link between what is now known as the ‘baby schema’ i.e. the “blueprint” that explains why we “gravitate” to anything that resembles a baby not just in looks but in behaviour too.

The sentiment felt is not unique to women either; men feel it too as our ‘caretaker’ response is triggered. “From the research we have so far, it looks like the cuteness response is inclusive of everyone, regardless of whether you are a parent or not,” says Eloise Stark, from the University of Oxford. “This is why people are able to capitalise on cuteness in marketing, selling “cute” toys like Hello Kitty. The cuteness activates the same brain mechanisms, regardless of whether the object is a baby, a puppy or an object.”