Why Are Things Cute?

  I mentioned this in my last interesting post, How Much Money Is Love Worth?, and you may remember this dog...

  Surely, your initial reaction is to squeal and reveal the inner dog lover in you by saying things like "Aww he's so cute and fluffy!"  It's ok, it happens to the best of us.  Alright we know what fluffy means but what exactly does cute mean?  Scientifically?  

  The word "cute" is a shortened version of the word "acute" which actually means keen, shrewd, or perceptive.  About 180 years ago cute was used as slang to girls who were pretty.  Eventually, it gained a new meaning and was used to describe cuddly, delicate, precious, youthful traits.

  There was a guy who actually studied cuteness in living things named Konrad Lorenz.

Well that's cute...

He made a list of things that we would find cute.  He noticed that cuteness is usually characterized and this is what he found:

• Small body sizes with a disproportionately large head
• Large eyes
• A pleasantly fair
• Dimples
• Round and softer body features
• Traits: Playfulness, Fragility, Helplessness, Curiosity, Innocence, Affectionate Behavior, and a need to be Nurtured

  But why do these features trigger an "aww" response from us humans?  Because these are very common features of infants which was an evolutionary adaption.

  When we look at our offsprings (not that I have any) we feel a protective and nurturing instinct.  That is why we react more positively to animals that resemble infants with -big eyes, big heads, shortened noses, etc.- than to animals that do not.  There is more specific information to this here.

  Coincidentally, our experience with cuteness can be triggered by things that don't look like human babies.  For instance...

Turtles like Squirt

Polar Bears

and a hammer

  Wait, a hammer?  How so?  Because if you applied Lorenz's theory of cuteness adding more roundness and shorter length are similar qualities to human babies, so you get something like this...

Aww it's a baby hammer, don't hurt him!

  There's even an interactive program here that you can play around with to adjust a cat, human, and hammer to what you think is cute.

  So where exactly do we find cute?  Well I mean you know what is cute and how it is cute, but where?  Researchers have shown baby pictures to people while using functional MRI to track activity in the brain.  They found that the cuter the baby the higher the activity which was found in the nucleus accumbens part of the brain.  This is a pleasure center and dopamine is released, a way of rewarding the body internally, and this is the same area targeted by cocaine and meth.   

  Cuteness has such a powerful effect that it can even effect behavior.  Therefore, it influences what we like and what we buy.  So it's no surprise that cartoon makers like Pickachu, Hello Kitty, or Mickey Mouse have drawn them to be more cute over time.

  Let's learn more words shall we?

  Kawaii is the quality of cuteness in context of Japanese culture.  Japanese are known to include manga and anime as part of their culture and the idea above with Mickey Mouse is similar, but different.  For adults, it roughly takes about 7-7.5 heads to be stacked on top of each other to equal the height of a person.  We typically find that those who are 8-8.5 heads high to be heroic.  Cute goes the other way where manga characters are 5.5-6.5 heads tall.  

  Neoteny is a term used to describe juvenile traits in those who retain it throughout adulthood.  A good example of this is poopy diapers from babies.  Yet, we adore this especially in animals we keep as pets.  We've bred all kinds of animals overtime to make them more "useful" to us.  However, it's found that we have spent the most time "designing" dogs.  Each generation becomes better at hunting or even staying cuter for longer.  In other words, that means we have been spending so much time dictating behaviors and traits in ways we want, which is similar to DVD player and it's features.  That pretty much means that dogs are not only work of nature but human technology.  

  Here's another way to look at it: Certainly, dogs are a man's best friend, but undeniably due to the fact that dogs are man's best invention.

 
  I hope you enjoyed this!  I'm sorry I haven't posted lately and I hope this post will make up for it.  Thanks again and please comment below, I would love to see what you have to say!  Take care!