Have you ever looked at an adorable baby and squealed, “oh, you’re so cute, I was want to eat you up!?”
If you have (which if you’ve ever encountered an adorable baby, you’ve totally said this), then you’ve experienced a phenomenon known as “cute aggression.” Researchers made this a thing when they presented a study to the Society for Personality and Social Psychology conference in 2013. That’s right folks, your hard earned tax dollars were spent studying why you want to squeeze cute puppies (but to be fair, it was probably like .00000008 of a penny).
Researchers carried out a simple study where participants were shown a variety of pictures, and their emotional reactions to the pictures were measured.
The study found:
“Participants showed higher expressions of care for the more infantile babies, saying that they wanted to take care of them and protect them. But they also reported higher expressions of aggression in response to these babies, saying that they wanted to pinch the babies’ cheeks and “eat them up.”
But why do we do this:
Researchers think this odd behavior is a way of restoring our emotional equilibrium. Similar to crying tears of joy when we achieve a long sought-after goal or laughing nervously when we hear uncomfortable news, cute aggression is the balancing of conflicting emotions. It’s almost as if the cuteness is so overwhelming, the only way to respond is by snuggling it until it dies. Yeah, human beings are pretty weird.
Research also suggests that we want to bite cute things because at one point we did bite cute things. As babies, we experience the world with all our senses, especially taste. The desire to bite adorable things is a regressive behavior that stems back to early childhood.
It also stems back to early man.
Biting is an animal behavior that we still carry out, though not frequently because of social norms (think about how weird it would be to walk into an interview and bite your prospective employer because of animal instinct).
Animals often bite their own species not out of aggression, but due to playfulness. You’ve probably playfully nibbled your partner at some point. Likewise, it’s common for parents to bite the toes of their children in a playful manner. This behavior, often seen in the animal kingdom signifies trust and allows us to bond.
So, if you’ve ever wanted to bite (or have bitten) an adorable baby, you are not alone.
It’s okay. You’re a totally normal, non-cannibal that experiences the regular feelings evolution has taught us to carry out. So the next time you have a desire to bite a puppy (or an attractive stranger in a bar), you can just let them know, “it’s fine, bro. You and mean ain’t nothing but mammals.”
[Featured Image Credit: 44444 U.A.E via Flickr]