Sweetest aggression: Why do we want to crush, if it is to cute
Why we freak out when animal and human babies literally
Hardly anything is more prevalent and popular in the Internet as images, and Videos of dog and cat babies. Some people suffer at the sight of a “cuteness attack”, in which you feel a strong urge to push the Baby to cuddle animal fierce, or even to bite, without the desire behind it, a damage. Whence comes this widespread urge? Psychologists have studied this phenomenon of Niedlichkeits-Aggression in a recent study.
Many people are aware of it: At the sight of a cute animal babies, you want to grab it the most and so hard to press, how to do it. Also in the case of human babies and children, this urge arises in many individuals. A research team led by psychologist Katherine Stavropoulos from the University of California – Riverside went this frequently occurring pattern of behavior on the track, in order to understand the strange shape of the Aggression better. The results of the study were recently published in the journal “Frontiers in Behavioral Nueroscience”.
We are at the mercy of the cuteness helpless?
Head of research devoted Stavropoulos the topic after she had read a study about this type of Aggression. In 2015, a Team of psychologists from Yale University had reported on the phenomenon. The Yale researchers found, first, that the respondents responded more to baby animals than in adult animals. Stavropoulos, the findings in this area wanted to deepen. “If people reported that they felt the urge to squeeze the living things that you find cute, or even to bite, should use this as a pattern of activity in the brain reflect,” says the psychologist in a press release of the study results.
What happens in the brain when we see babies
Declared to be for the purposes of research, the Participants of the study, ready, 32 photos from the categories people, babies, pet babies and adult animals to watch while their brain activity was measured. After that, you had to fill out a questionnaire on how they felt at the sight of the pictures. “There was a particularly strong Match between the self-rated Niedlichkeits-Aggression towards cute animal baby and the recorded reward response in the brain,” says Stavropoulos. This confirmed the Hypothesis that the reward system is involved in this Form of Aggression.
People with children find a human baby sweet
The results showed that the response in the animal babies was much more violent than in the adult animals. In the case of human babies, the same pattern showed non-continuously. “I think if you have a child and pictures of cute babies to view, you may receive more sweet Aggression, and stronger neural responses than people with no children,” says the psychologist.
Whence comes this feeling?
The study provides, according to the researchers, the first neural evidence for the significant feelings of Niedlichkeits-Aggression. Why we feel such emotions, remains a theory. Stavropoulos an evolutionary agent in this process to ensure that the person is able to take care of living beings, which he considers to be particularly sweet. “If we perceive something as overwhelmingly sweet, we care more about,” says the psychologist. (vb)
