There are certain characteristics that babies have which automatically trigger a sense of happiness in our brains. According to an ethologist from Austria, these adorable traits include a round head, big eyes, and a few others.
Babies. Just the mention of the word makes us want to cuddle those cute little infants. Their cuteness is powerful, capable of calming anger and alleviating sadness. However, as they grow older, their faces change and we no longer feel the overwhelming desire to cuddle and care for them. This raises some scientific questions: were babies meant to be adorable? Are we naturally wired to find them cute? Or is there more to it than meets the eye?
Kindchenschema: The Traits of Cuteness:
All babies share a few common characteristics: a round head, a large forehead, big eyes, chubby cheeks, a rounded body, and soft, elastic skin.
Kindchenschema, or the traits of cuteness such as big round eyes and a large, chubby face, make babies or anything with those traits appear adorable.
This is known as the Kindchenschema or “Baby Schema” or “traits of cuteness”. In 1943, Konrad Lorenz, an ethologist from Austria (ethology being the study of animal behavior), proposed kinderschema to explain why we find babies cute. According to Lorenz, this is an evolutionary tactic to encourage us to care for babies who are unable to do anything for themselves. In fact, the kinderschema applies to more than just babies.
Baby animals, such as kittens, puppies, koalas, or chicks, as well as fictional characters like Mickey Mouse or BB-8 from Star Wars, all fall within this spectrum of cuteness. Take BB-8, for example. It possesses all the characteristics that Lorenz would consider cute – a round head that is in proportion to its larger, round body, along with big, round eyes. All of this roundness gives BB-8 an irresistibly chubby appearance. BB-8 is so cute that its $149 figure sold out in less than 15 minutes on Amazon.
What is the Purpose of This Cuteness?
This cuteness is a result of evolution. In 2009, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania conducted an experimental test on Lorenz’s Kindchenschema for the first time. They asked 122 undergraduate students to rate the cuteness of infants. The researchers discovered that the cuter the students rated the baby, the more they desired to care for it.
BB-8 is a perfect example of how the traits of cuteness can make even non-human objects appear cute.
Lorenz’s evolutionary explanation aligns with this finding. These cute features make adults and children want to care for babies. It is not just an emotional “awwwwwww,” but a physical urge to protect and nurture. It seems that our bodies are instinctively wired to respond affectionately to cuteness.
This makes sense because, without adult caregivers, babies would not survive into adulthood. Human babies are particularly vulnerable compared to many other animals since they require care for a much longer period. Human babies learn to walk at around one year old, while many other animals, such as foals, are able to walk within hours of being born. Human babies rely on their mother’s milk for up to the first two years of their lives, while kittens only need to be weaned by their mother for one month, at the most.
Babies are not the most pleasant creatures to take care of, with all their bodily functions and inability to communicate. They are unable to perform basic tasks like cooking, cleaning, or gathering food. However, babies have evolved cuteness to ensure the survival of the species.
The origins of cuteness and other traits like hair or facial features are difficult to study for evolutionary biologists. They look for genetic or epigenetic clues to understand how these traits evolved. It is unclear how our genes control infant face structure or why we feel the need to nurture cute things.
Research has shown that our bodies respond to cuteness through physiological changes. This response is called “innate releasing mechanisms” and is hardwired into our neural networks. The brain reacts to cuteness in terms of appearance, infant voices, and gestures. Both parents’ brains can change due to babies and childbirth. Even non-parents experience neurological activation in the presence of babies or anything that follows the “baby schema.”
Cuteness is designed to elicit protective and maternal feelings towards babies. It can drive empathy and even affect our moral behavior. The image of a distressed infant can have a powerful impact on our perception of crises, as seen in the case of a three-year-old Syrian refugee in 2015.
However, not everyone responds to cuteness in the same way. Women are generally more sensitive to cuteness than men, although the difference is not significant. Hormones may play a role in our response to cuteness, particularly in young women who are biologically prepared for childbirth and caregiving. However, the extent to which this response is biological or culturally learned is still unknown.
In conclusion, the presence of cuteness in babies triggers a variety of responses in humans. It is important to protect and care for infants to maintain their cuteness factor.