The ugly side of cuteness
Quick note! ‘Cute’ is a word that does a lot of work. According to one of my favourite sites, the Online Etymology Dictionary, it was originally a shortening of ‘acute’, as in ‘mentally sharp'. In 19th century America, the meaning somehow changed to ‘pretty’ or ‘attractive’. These days, we might use it to mean either sexually attractive (“a cute guy”) or something like charming, loveable or endearing (“a cute dog”). Just so we’re clear, throughout this blog I’m using ‘cute’ in this last sense.
You know me, literally any excuse to post a picture of a dog.
What makes something or someone cute?
A lot of the research about cuteness is about things that have faces, mainly humans, cats, and dogs. All these species, humans included, have a characteristic called neoteny – that is, they all look somewhat like baby versions of other species. Adult humans look a lot like young chimpanzees and gorillas (though less hairy, obviously); adult cats look like wildcat kittens; adult dogs look like wolf cubs.
What marks neoteny is similar across humans, cats and dogs. Compared to other primates/felines/canines, we share features like:
A large head relative to the rest of the body
A rounded face
Large eyes
A small nose
A small mouth
These features - let’s call them baby-facedness - are even more pronounced in babies, kittens and puppies than they are in adults, cats and dogs. Baby-facedness is one thing we might consider cute and our brains do seem to respond to it in a way that indicates we find it pleasing.
An aside about babies
I don’t know if you’re like me, but I don’t find many babies cute. My internal reaction to most babies is a pretty emotionally neutral, ‘Huh, a small human.’
I will, of course, still make a fuss because I am thrilled for the friend or relative who has presented me with their new child. There are occasional exceptions to my overall neutrality – like my nephew, who looked like a tiny delightful gnome in his first few months. I recognise that I likely felt that way because I am related to him.
This is by way of saying that most of the research I read about cuteness was about neoteny and frankly I was suspicious that the researchers seemed to think we all find it cute. However, I did find a small amount of research on other aspects of cuteness. For example, we may also find pictures of animals cuter if they’re small, if their species is fairly closely related to ours, and if they’re doing something we think of as human-like. We’ll come back to this in a bit.
Babies: fine, I guess.
Back to neoteny. By now, you might be thinking, Why are some species neotenous and not others? Well, one possibility is that it’s a by-product of domestication.
In domesticating dogs and cats, we’ve selectively bred less and less aggressive animals. Babies of any species are inherently much less threatening than adults. This type of baby-cuteness isn’t only about the face; it also includes things like clumsy behaviour, being soft to the touch, and having a high-pitched voice.
So, when you’re trying to find a non-aggressive animal to be the parent of the next generation, you might be inclined to pick the one that looks, sounds and feels most baby-like. Similarly, our ancestors might have preferred being friends with more baby-like humans because of this implied non-aggression. As much of being a human involves co-operating with others, those who most easily make friends – of any species – are also those who are most likely to survive and have children.
But… while we’ve been busy surrounding ourselves with cuteness, it’s been having effects on us too.
The ‘cute response’
When we see something or someone who’s cute in a baby-faced way, many of us respond in a particular way: a desire to care for, attend to, and protect the cute animal/person.
There isn’t a word in English (or indeed in many other languages) to describe the emotional response we’re having when we see something that makes us go ‘aww’. This can make it a bit difficult to research. Nonetheless, whatever you might want to call that feeling, we seem to develop it pretty early in childhood.
Astonishingly, cuteness appears to have a positive effect on our fine motor skills, the small muscle movements you need to do things like write, do up buttons, and, er, play the game Operation – the last of these being the thing researchers tested performance on when looking at whether cute puppies and kittens could have this effect. We also focus more on small details than usual after we see a cute animal, and we’re more likely to want to share things with others. Researchers think this might mean that seeing a baby-like face has two effects: making us want to approach the cute thing and/or getting us ready to look after it, which is likely to require sharing resources and careful, delicate movements.
I guess this means cuteness might also make you better at the tiny movements you need to do some kinds of science, which is cool.
Sorry, this ending is a downer
Cuteness also has its painful side. Earlier I mentioned research on non-neoteny cuteness predictors like species being fairly closely related to our own. In this experiment, the researchers also looked at what effect this and other cuteness factors had on participants’ willingness to protect a species. I’m sure it won’t surprise you to know that people were generally more willing to protect the animals they found cute. This and other aesthetic whims can be a real pain for conservationists, because people may not want to help with conservation of species they don’t find appealing in some way. Similarly, less cute-looking pets might have a harder time getting adopted than others of their species – but it’s not all roses for the cute ones, either.
Many people find pugs and French bulldogs cute, and with their bulging eyes and squashy noses they are certainly among the most baby-faced of dog breeds. The problem is, those features also come with serious side effects. Ever heard a pug wheezing? That’s because that squashy nose makes it really difficult to breathe.
Not so cute now, eh?
Long story short: adopt the most hideous pet you can find and consider joining the Ugly Animal Preservation Society.