Three things you’ll learn from reading my book “Irresistible”

The NZ Listener asked me to write a short piece on what readers will learn from my book. The original is behind a paywall here, so this is a rough draft. I’ve included some of the illustrations from the book.  

Hello Kitty, Disney characters and emojis – when we reflect on what shapes global cultures, we don’t tend to think about the “cute factor”. However, there’s serious psychology and biology behind what we find cute and growing recognition that cuteness has, in fact, made an impact well beyond saccharine sentiment. Here’s what readers will learn from Irresistible: How Cuteness Wired our Brains and Conquered the World.

Cuteness has ancient roots in Japan:

Japan, the country I now call home, can seem to have an obsession with cuteness. Animal cafes provide playtime with cats, miniature pigs and even hedgehogs. Expecting couples can pray for a safe delivery of their baby at a Kyoto shrine full of rabbit statues, and they might ride a Hello Kitty-themed bullet train to get there. But most people don’t realize that the roots of Japanese ‘kawaii’ reach back more than 1000 years.

“All small things are most adorable”, reads a line from The Pillow Book, a literary classic that describes the cuteness of baby birds, tiny flowers and even doll’s house furniture. Ancient scrolls featured ink brush drawings of frolicking rabbits, foxes, monkeys and frogs. And cuteness has endured in the arts of Japan ever since. Since the 18th century, woodblock prints have often included animal scenes, from cats visiting a bathhouse to rabbits at a sumo tournament.

It might explain the mystery behind how we domesticated animals:

The tradition of seeing animals and even everyday objects as having human qualities runs deep in Japan’s animist worldview and shapes much of its contemporary landscape. Living in a country full of cat cafes, rabbit shrines and robot dogs made me wonder how domesticated animals became cute in the first place. It turns out that the mysterious origins of the domestication syndrome are one of the oldest problems in genetics.  

From cats and dogs to pigs and sheep, animals go through similar changes as they become tame. Many of these might be regarded as cute, including smaller teeth and shorter muzzles in addition to wider faces, floppy ears and curly tails. Charles Darwin wondered why this diverse suite of changes held true across so many different species. We may have bred dogs to be cute, but would we have done the same to pigs? In trying to answer this question, I discovered something else: cuteness was important not only to the evolution of domesticated animals, but Homo sapiens as well.

The dark side of cuteness:

On the other hand, cuteness also has a dark side – and it doesn’t only come from companies trying to manipulate us into buying cute things. When our love of the cute goes too far, it impacts the health of animals. Flat-faced dogs, from bulldogs to pugs, are bred to be so cute they can hardly breathe.

The future holds even more potential for misuse, and many people are worried about what might happen if artificial beings attain self-awareness. In Irresistible, you’ll learn how a cute robot or AI could bridge the ‘uncanny valley’ – the moment when a not-quite-human replica becomes creepy and threatening. We’ll be more likely to forgive their mistakes if they exhibit childlike curiosity and wonder. After all, the reason we evolved to feel cuteness in the first place was so that small children would receive care and socialization. Will cute AI robots soon be begging the same indulgence? It turns out that Japan is on the forefront of this revolution, too.

Finally…

Despite this disturbing prospect, one insight I gained from writing this book is that most people see cuteness as positive and don’t feel manipulated by it. It seems to sneak in under our radar as it pops up in more and more places without much comment. And bad intentions aside, studies show that feeling cuteness has surprising benefits. Feeling this emotion can reduce stress and anxiety, heighten compassion, and make us more sociable. When we see something as cute it becomes humanized, and we relax. For good or ill, cuteness is a powerful psychological impulse that has remade everything from animals to robots – including us.