From Moo Deng the pygmy hippo and Pesto the penguin to Molé the baby sloth and Biscuits the seal—the internet loves to turn adorable baby animals into viral sensations. But what’s going on in our brain when we see something cute and why are we so interested in sharing those things with others on social media?
“We seek out cuteness because it feels good!” explains Joshua Paul Dale, a professor at Chuo University in Tokyo and author of Irresistible: How Cuteness Wired Our Brains and Conquered the World . “The perception of cuteness attracts our attention very quickly—within 1/7 of a second—by triggering a response in the orbitofrontal cortex, the pleasure and reward network of the brain. This fast neural activity seems to be followed by slower appraisal processes that elicit caregiving behavior, decrease aggression, and activate networks involved in play, empathy, and compassion.”
So how does our brain define cute and why does it react this way?
Greenland husky puppies play in Qaanaaq, Greenland. Much like human babies, puppies have features that stimulate our innate caregiving instincts.
Photograph By Kiliii Yuyan, Nat Geo image Collection
What makes something cute?
The first stop for anyone interested in the phenomenon of cuteness is Austrian ethologist Konrad Lorenz’s landmark 1943 paper, which defines a collection of attributes he dubs kindchenschema, or baby schema. Among the features that hold the key to cuteness: a large head relative to body size; a prominent forehead; large eyes set low in the head; small, close-set nose and mouth; round, chubby cheeks and body; short, thick extremities; and wobbly movements.
Lorenz posited that our brain’s response to cuteness is an evolutionary adaptation: Cuteness triggers innate caregiving, nurturing, and protective behavior to improve the likelihood of species survival. He believed our response to cuteness was irrepressible.
A baby panda sleeps at a zoo while visitors clammer for a glimpse. We’re more likely to invest in conserving species we find cute, like pandas—which almost went extinct.
Photograph By Ami Vitale, Nat Geo Image Collection
Research has found that baby schema attributes can be seen in other animal species, particularly those whose young require care. This may be part of why humans find some animals particularly cute.
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“Basically, cuteness worked so well in our evolution that it easily spills over to trigger a cuteness response for animals and objects,” Dale says.
But Lorenz’s theory doesn’t tell the whole story. According to Kamilla Knutsen Steinnes, a PhD candidate in behavioral analysis at Oslo Metropolitan University, there’s more at play here than simply triggering caregiving instincts.
“While substantial research finds that our response to cuteness seems deeply rooted in parental care and mammalian survival, a growing body of research suggests that it goes beyond caregiving,” Steinnes explains. She says when we see something cute, it evokes a wide range of powerful, predominantly positive, emotions. Our brain has a unique, rapid, and specific response, with activation in areas linked to emotion, reward, motivation, and pleasure.
Further, our response to cuteness encourages prosocial behavior, social engagement, and humanization.
A mother seal and pup relax after nursing. The large, round eyes and round heads found in seals make them cute into adulthood.
Photograph By Jennifer Haye, Nat Geo Image Collection
When cute becomes kawaii
The scholarly inability to define the full range of feelings prompted by perceiving cuteness may be due to limitations of language, Steinnes posits. “The evoked emotional response to cuteness has been little studied, perhaps because the emotion has no specific name in English, Norwegian, or German,” she writes in a 2019 research paper.
“Cuteness may evoke kama muta (the feeling of being moved), compassion, tenderness, empathic concern, nurturant love, kawaii, or cute aggression,” Steinnes told us. Kama muta is a Sanskrit term. It can be triggered by communal sharing, Steinnes explains. “In colloquial terms, the perceiver adores the cute kittens and their heart goes out to them.”
Kawaii is the wildly popular Japanese concept often translated simply as “cute,” but that actually encompasses ideas of simplicity, youthful innocence, tiny, endearing, adorable, loveable.
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Like Steinnes, Dale agrees that our response goes beyond caregiving, writing in his book that “the feeling of kawaii encourages affiliation, which is social bonding in a broader sense than just nurturing. This is why feeling that something is cute makes us want to get closer to it, even if we have no particular desire to protect or nurture it.”
Cuteness is a slippery aesthetic: difficult to define with words, though you know it when you see it. But kawaii may be onto something by associating cuteness with smallness and simplicity. When it comes to animals (whether real or cartoon), elements that typically add up to “cute,” include overall small size and visual simplicity that overemphasizes baby schema attributes (think Pikachu, Mickey Mouse).
An elephant calf plays with shrubs. It’s not just physical features that makes something cute, say experts. Curious, playful movements also make animals appear cute.
Photograph By David Chancellor, Nat Geo Image collection
More than a cute face
Social media is awash in photos of pet cats happily snoozing and accompanied by captions describing how hard their human works to afford the cat a carefree existence. This isn’t by chance. Much of our modern cute-seeking and sharing behavior is driven by escapism: the idealization of an untroubled life. This point is explored in the academic text Dale co-edited, The Aesthetics and Affects of Cuteness .
For animals, domesticity—whether at home or in captivity—means a life of leisure at any age.
In the case of Moo Deng—whose name translates to ‘bouncy pig”—Dale believes movement is key to our attraction: “I think it’s her movements more than her appearance that trigger so many people’s cuteness response. She happily plays when squirted with a hose, playfully bites a zookeeper. We’re attracted to animals still in their socialization window who eagerly and fearlessly explore a world in which everything is new.”
It may be easier to romanticize cute animals since they can’t talk back or complain, plus many species stay small (in comparison to humans) their entire lives.
Our interest, of course, extends beyond social media. Opportunities for up close and personal animal interaction now go far beyond the traditional petting zoo: be it high-priced private encounters at zoos and aquariums to cat cafes, goat yoga, and capybara spas, we desperately desire to connect with other creatures.
Five burrowing owl chicks sit in a bush. Scientists say the emotional response to seeing cute animals is surprisingly complex, evoking a range of positive emotions.
Photograph By Michael Forsberg, Nat Geo Image Collection
While controlled interactions with wildlife can increase our interest in conservation, they may also fuel the desire for wild animal ownership, convey acceptability of animal exploitation, or stress out the animals. In his book, Dale describes his experience visiting a fox village in Japan favored by influencers: annoyed by the standoffish behavior of the foxes, visitors regularly ignore the posted rules in order to get the foxes to approach them.
“It’s not just a selfish pleasure. Feeling the desire to protect, care for, and play with a cute baby or animal, even if it’s only an image on our social media feed, encourages empathy and compassion,” Dale assures us. It’s built into us, irrepressible; part of what makes us who we are. “Cuteness makes us human.”
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