2023-06-06 by Shakunthala Natarajan
Why Do We Find Babies Cute? Science Blog
Babies are the ceindnters of attraction wherever we go, right? They pull everybody towards them with their infectious smile and loads of cuteness. Jigyasa too is attracted by the cuteness of her baby niece. But she wonders why the tiny ones are so attractive. I bet you must also be curious to know about it! Let us join Jigyasa and Utsuka as they explore why babies are cute.
Do you know that there was a Nobel laureate who researched and came up with a ‘cuteness blueprint’? He was Konrad Lorenz, an Austrian scientist. He defined certain features like large heads, small bodies, large eyes, tiny ears, mouth, nose and little sprouts of hair that together make babies appear as cute bundles with their giggles and shrill wails! Their sweet voices and peculiar smell add on to the cuteness kit in babies. Studies looking at how adults respond to babies have observed certain pleasure signals in adult brains when they look at babies. This tells us that cuteness is a feeling created when adults look at newborn babies and is hard-wired in our brains.
Now you must be thinking, ‘what does cuteness being hard-wired mean here?’. Well it tells us that cuteness is an emotion that has evolved in humans as a component of our complex emotional brains!
Utsuka and Jigyasa are now in complete awe of the cuteness story of babies. But, they still haven’t uncovered “why” babies look cute to us! They are joined by Dr. Vidita Vaidya, a brain scientist, who explains the need for babies to be cute. As Dr. Vaidya puts it, the tiny ones are completely dependent on their parents and other caregivers for survival. Babies have to be fed, given protection and cared for constantly. They need to become the top-most priority for the caregivers. Cuteness is the baby superpower that aids in turning the adult’s attention towards the baby and ensures that its needs are fulfilled. When babies are taken care of, their survival chance increases.
But we do not find human babies alone to be cute, right? How many love petting cats, dogs and other pet animals?! All the puppies and kittens are show stealers like human babies. Young ones of most animals have the cuteness blueprint – big eyes, small nose, and tiny mouth – making them attractive to us. Not only that, any object with cuteness features looks cute to us. That’s why even young ones in cartoons look cute to us. Remember the incredibly cute baby Jack-Jack Parr of Incredibles?
Through our journey into the world of babies with Utsuka, Jigyasa and Dr. Vaidya, we understood that we find babies cute as a result of years of evolution to increase the survival chances of the helpless young-ones. We also got to know that the design of cuteness as an emotion is now in-built in the adult brains because the survival of babies ensures survival of the whole species on the planet! If the cute babies have kindled your curiosity, and you want to know more about them, gear up your headphones and listen to Utsuka and Jigyasa’s voices in the podcast!
References
- Saini, A. (no date) The code for Cuteness, BBC Earth. Available at: https://www.bbcearth.com/news/the-code-for-cuteness (Accessed: April 26, 2023).
- Tarlach, G. (2020) Why babies are so cute - and why we react the way we do, Discover Magazine. Discover Magazine. Available at: https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/why-babies-are-so-cute-and-why-we-react-the-way-we-do (Accessed: April 26, 2023).
- Resnick, B. (2016) Babies' cuteness is key to their survival. what happens when they're not that cute?, Vox. Vox. Available at: https://www.vox.com/2016/6/8/11872688/ugly-babies-discrimination (Accessed: April 24, 2023).
- Why do babies' features seem so cute? (2021) Science ABC. Available at: https://www.scienceabc.com/nature/why-do-we-find-babies-cute.html (Accessed: April 24, 2023).
- Babies don't just look cute, scientists find (no date) University of Oxford. Available at: https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2016-06-07-babies-dont-just-look-cute-scientists-find (Accessed: April 26, 2023).
