Why cuteness is important

The ability to feel cuteness has been with us from the beginning, driving human evolution. Now, decades of scientific research suggest that exposure to cuteness may have practical benefits for the mind and body. Cuteness can prime your brain for fun, make you more social, heighten empathy, increase motivation, and improve physical and mental performance.

• Feel better with cuteness

• Treat yourself!

• Preparing for a videoconference or virtual hangout

• Dealing with Twitter rage

• Make boring tasks easier

• Get ready for work

Feeling guilty after binging on cute Internet cat videos? A study of nearly 7,000 viewers of cute feline content found short-lived feelings of regret are counterbalanced by stress relief, an increase in happiness and a desire to share the cheer and goodwill with others. Internet cats can function as a form of digital pet therapy (Myrick 2015).

If you’re feeling stressed or isolated, help may be closer than you think. Launch your favorite social media platform or website and cue up an endless loop of cuteness. Research shows that choosing your own cute content accrues more benefits, so be sure to find things that you feel are adorable (Ohno 2020).

Cuteness is a powerful positive stimulus that promotes pleasure and wellbeing (Kringelbach 2016). Brain imaging studies show that viewing cute images activates reward areas of the brain such as the nucleus accumbens and amygdala (Kringelbach 2008; Glocker 2009). This creates a feedback loop of “self-reward focus:” once you start feeling something is cute, your brain anticipates more rewarding experiences (Nenkov and Scott 2014).

When college students were given a whimsically cute ice cream scoop they served themselves two more ounces than when they used a regular scoop (Nenkov and Scott 2014). Yet though they wielded the cute scoop more enthusiastically, people only ate a little more ice cream than usual. Cuteness acts as a form of “cognitive priming:” it fosters a sense of carefree playfulness that gets the brain ready for fun, even if common sense or ingrained habit takes over later on (Nenkov and Scott 2014). Checking out your cute content stream doesn’t have to be an end in itself: it can get you ready to relax and have fun in other ways.

Feeling cuteness helps to facilitate social relationships (Sherman and Haidt 2011). In the mid 1970s researchers attached electrodes to the faces of forty-seven college students and showed them photographs of cute babies on a slide projector screen. The cutest babies caused activity in the zygomaticus muscle, which is used for smiling. These were not full on rictus-like grins. Rather, they were the slight smiles of happy faces (Hildebrand and Fitzgerald 1978).

A more recent survey (no electrodes this time) found that subjects gave “smile” the highest cuteness rating out of ninety-three items: a ranking higher than “baby” (Nittono 2016). Smiling is contagious in a good way: if you start, others will follow. Indulge in a few minutes of cuteness before the start of that virtual meeting or hangout and you’ll help everyone to communicate better.

If cuteness has an opposite, it is disgust: one emotion humanizes; the other dehumanizes. When something disgusts us, we disengage and exile it from our “moral circle.” Inside the circle are those entities we care about and seek to protect. Cute things are granted automatic entry into the moral circle (Sherman and Haidt 2011).

Cuteness is not only about care and protection. It also triggers sociality: we want to get closer to cute things and engage with them. If you feel outraged at a disgusting Twitter troll, indulging in cute content will increase your empathy and move you closer to accepting those who are different (Sherman and Haidt 2011). Part of the bedrock of caregiving and altruism, cuteness can help restore your sense of equilibrium after a dehumanizing encounter (Eibl-Eibesfeldt 1974).

When we see something cute—even an inanimate object—we can’t help but imagine it has emotions and a mind. If you’re feeling isolated or lonely, you may feel the urge to anthropomorphize things around the house (Epley 2008). Roll with it! Studies have shown that exposure to cuteness overcomes the reluctance to perform a task. For example, people are more willing to fill out a survey when a picture of a cute child is placed on the table or a live puppy accompanies the interviewer (Bellfield 2011). They offered more help and gave more money to a stranger with a dog (Guéuen & Ciccotti, 2008).

These altruistic effects are not limited to cuteness cues from children and animals. When environmental causes are promoted with cute anthropomorphized images such as light bulbs or trees with adorable faces, people are more likely to offer support (Ahm 2014). Recycling bins are used more when adorned with cute images and messages (Wang 2017).

The classic children’s game “Operation” requires players to remove body parts carefully from confined spaces. It’s a surprisingly effective measure of fine motor control. When scientists showed university students pictures of animals and then had them play a round of Operation, those who had seen images of cute kittens and puppies did a better job. People respond to cuteness with increased carefulness (Sherman 2009).

Viewing cute content is a good priming mechanism for tasks that require physical agility, care and attention. Could this hold true for jobs that require only mental acuity? More university students were recruited to find out. After viewing cute animals, their performance improved on brainteasers that required fast visual searching. You can use cuteness to prime your brain for any job that require narrow, focused attention (Nittono 2012).

References

Ahn, H. K., Kim, H. J. and Aggarwal, P. (2014), 'Helping fellow beings: Anthropomorphized social causes and the role of anticipatory guilt', Psychological Science, 25(1): 224-229.

Bellfield, J., Bimont, C., Blom, J., Dommeyer, C. J., Gardiner, K., Mathenia, E. and Soto, J. (2011), 'The effect of a cute stimulus on personally-initiated, self-administered surveys', Marketing Bulletin, 22, Research Note 1.

Eibl-Eibesfeldt, I. (1974) Love and Hate: The Natural History of Behavior Patterns. New York: Schocken.

Epley, N., Akalis, S., Waytz, A., & Cacioppo, J. T. (2008). “Creating social connection through inferential reproduction: Loneliness and perceived agency in gadgets, gods, and greyhounds.” Psychological Science 19: 114–120.

Hildebrandt, K., & Fitzgerald, H. (1978). Adults’ responses to infants varying in perceived cuteness.” Behavioral Processes 3: 159-172.

Glocker, M.L. (2009) “Baby schema modulates the brain reward system in nulliparous women.” PNAS 106(22): 9115-9119.

Guéuen, N. and Ciccotti, S. (2008). “Domestic dogs as facilitators in social interaction: An evaluation of helping and courtship behaviors.” Anthrozoos 21(4): 339-349.

Kringelbach, M.L. et. al. (2008) “A Specific and Rapid Neural Signature for Parental Instinct.” PLoS ONE 3(2): e1664.

Kringelbach, M.L. et. al. (2016) “On cuteness: unlocking the parental brain and beyond.” Trends in Cognitive Science. 20(7): 545–558.

Myrick, Jessica G. (2015) “Emotion regulation, procrastination, and watching cat videos online: Who watches Internet cats, why, and to what effect?” Computers in Human Behavior 52: 168–176.

Nenkov, G.Y. and Scott, M.L. (2014) “’So cute I could eat it up:’ priming effects of cute products on indulgent consumption.” Journal of Consumer Research. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press. DOI: 10.1086/676581.

Ohno, A. and Tanaka, M. (2020) “The effect of kawaii on task performance: Viewing cute images without baby schema.” Kyushu University Psychological Research. 21: 15-22.

Sherman, G.D., Haidt, J. and Coan, J.A. (2009) “Viewing Cute Images Increases Behavioral Carefulness.” Emotion, 9(2): 282-286.

Sherman, G. D. and Haidt, J. (2011), 'Cuteness and disgust: The humanizing and dehumanizing effects of emotion', Emotion Review, 3(3): 245-251.