The urge to bite an animal's ears or squeeze its cheeks is known as cute aggression. Scientists have been trying to learn more about such behaviors.
What Is Cute Aggression?
When people see a cute animal, they may want to hold it, tightly squeeze it, or give it a name. Others may want to pretend to eat the animal's floppy ear or paw, while others may even act like they are feeding the creature with matching "nom, nom, nom" sound effects.
The question is, if these things are things that people love, why do people act like they are hurting them?
Such a phenomenon is known as cute aggression, a kind of dimorphous expression wherein a person has over one emotion at a time.
This idea was first introduced back in 2000. It came as part of a model that sheds light on emotional progression. It starts with a stimulus that prompts an emotional experience, such as feeling overwhelmed by the level of cuteness. It then further leads to expressive behavior.
In the case of dimorphous expression, an individual goes through more than one expressive behavior. This individual may exhibit delight with the cuteness but also express the great cuteness of the animals' paws and their desire to munch on these paws.
While feelings of delight over the cute paws of dogs make sense, the urge to chomp them may appear like an aggressive impulse that does not fit into the context. Researchers hypothesize that dimorphous reactions occur for emotional regulation when a person gets overwhelmed.
Specialists have been maximizing technology to delve deeper into the neural mechanisms of cute aggression in recent years. Katherine Meltzoff, a neuroscientist, started looking into the phenomenon after receiving a web article from a friend that showed how people self-diagnose themselves with having cute aggression. This prompted Meltzoff to question what could be happening in the brain and what emotions are handling such a behavior.
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Why Do We Experience Cute Aggression?
As part of the study, Meltzoff and her partner wanted to look into the neural mechanisms linked to the phenomenon. The researchers recruited 54 college students with an age range of 18 to 40. These participants were then connected to an electroencephalogram (EEG).
The participants watched four image sets, two featuring baby animals and cute babies and the other two showing adult animals and "less cute" babies, the latter being computer-generated. Participants also had to complete questionnaires regarding their awareness of their reaction to particular stimuli.
The EEG allows the researchers to gauge electrical activity within milliseconds of the events. They observed that activity was greater after cute animal images were shown.
People who exhibited greater activity after seeing the cute animals were likelier to report experiencing a dimorphous reaction. Similarly, the researchers also observed a significant association between actual cute aggression reports and reward positivity amplitude.
Meltzoff notes that the findings suggest the involvement of reward systems and emotions in cute aggression.
The study also observed that people who are more likely to get emotionally overwhelmed have a higher likelihood of experiencing cute aggression.
Scientists are still looking into how dimorphous reactions could aid with emotional regulation. Meltzoff also desires to learn more about the development of cute aggression and whether it is based on one's experience. Meltzoff also suspects that cute aggression is not something people are born with.
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