The cuddle factor


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Sleeping Kitten | Animal children make people’s hearts soar all over the world.

Women may perceive differences in cuteness better than men. However, it is debatable whether they are also more attached to cute features. In some studies, they rated children’s photos as more attractive and sweeter. Perhaps social expectations also play a role. A few years ago, the Scottish psychologist Amanda Hahn therefore used a more indirect method to measure the attraction of faces. In their experiment, the test subjects were able to extend the time they were allowed to look at a portrait of a small child by alternately pressing two letter keys. The female participants pressed the keys significantly more often than the male subjects; so they put more effort into looking at the cute photos. However, other working groups did not find any significant differences between the sexes using the same method.

Toddlers and baby animals top the cuteness rankings worldwide

The answer to the question of the extent to which origin influences our »cuteness sensor« is clearer. According to studies, people from different cultures are surprisingly similar in this respect. Japanese people also do better in the Doctor Bibber game if they have seen cute animal faces beforehand. The finding that people prefer to take care of babies with strong childlike characteristics has now been replicated in several countries.

In 2021, the psychologist Hiroshi Nittono from the University of Osaka also examined what people in the USA, Israel and Japan understand by cuteness. He did find minor differences; the Japanese term »kawaii« is associated somewhat more strongly with the female gender than the English word »cute«. On the whole, however, the three cultural groups agree – also on the question of what they find cute and what not: small children and animal babies ended up in the top spots with all participants. However, Nittono did find small discrepancies. Respondents from Japan and the USA stated more frequently than those from Israel that they also found items of clothing or fashion accessories cute. Which such objects specifically appeal to us may very well depend on cultural imprints. In a survey by the marketing newspaper “Horizont”, the character “Hello Kitty” met with comparatively little approval from German parents. On the other hand, the pink comic cat is one of the most successful media franchises worldwide.

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“Hello Kitty” | The comic cat is one of the most successful brands in the world. In some countries it even adorns express trains or airplanes.

The brain prefers to process cuteness stimuli

There’s a reason that good business can be done with cuteness: It’s almost like glucose – it goes »directly into the blood«. Our brains literally process cute stimuli in the fast lane. In an experiment, the Oxford neuroscientist Morten Kringelbach presented test subjects with images of infants. Just a seventh of a second later, a certain area of ​​the cerebral cortex was in top form: the medial orbifrontal cortex (mOFC). In contrast, there was no such reaction on the faces of adults. The mOFC assigns an emotional value to information and thus helps us to decide on a behavior. A result of the Münster psychologist Melanie Glocker fits in with this: She was able to show that portraits of small children activated the reward system in young women, especially the nucleus accumbens, and the more the girls and boys corresponded to the child schema, the more so.

“The nucleus accumbens is a hotspot for dopamine,” says Peter Bos of Leiden University. The neurotransmitter is often referred to as the happiness messenger; a term that really doesn’t fit at all. “Dopamine doesn’t make us feel good, it makes us want something—that we want to connect with the child, touch them, communicate with them,” Bos explains. In addition, round, chubby cheeks and big eyes seem to “kidnap” our mind to a certain extent: the signal in the mOFC was followed shortly afterwards by extremely strong activity in a brain region that is responsible for processing faces. It is therefore possible that the brain directs its capacities more towards processing faces if it has previously been triggered by cuteness signals. This interpretation is supported by another finding. Accordingly, when we see cute pictures, our attention narrows. This reaction is actually known from threatening situations: when, for example, we only pay attention to the strange cracking of the branches in the forest and block out everything around it. Children’s faces seem to have a similar effect.

Not only children can manipulate with innocent looks

So cuteness affects how we feel and think, presumably in ways that are at least partly beyond our control. It also gives power. Children learn this quickly: when they widen their eyes and say “bittööö” very sweetly, we melt away. And adults use this effect too. In South Korea, this phenomenon even has its own name – Aegyo: Young women stamp their feet in defiance when a wish is denied them; they talk childishly, pull a face or hide their face behind their hands when they are embarrassed. This behavior is not limited to relationships with friends or partners, but is also practiced (in a milder form) in the workplace: Acting sweet, innocent and needy is one way of asserting oneself in a male-dominated society. In a field study by academic Yewon Hong, 40 percent of respondents said women who behaved in this way had advantages both in their private lives and at work.



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