Berlin – “It’s so cute,” people often blurt out when looking at a creature with big eyes, a high forehead and a small nose. The concept of cuteness applies not only to children, but also to baby animals. The DPA agency investigated why this is so.
The signs described above evoke positive feelings in people, says Norbert Sachser from the Institute for Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology of the University of Münster. They inspire the belief in a person that “they want to take care of this creator”.
Konrad Lorenz, the Austrian founder of modern ethology, i.e. the science dealing with animal behavior, and later winner of the Nobel Prize, came up with the concept of cuteness already in the 1940s. In addition to typical features in the face, such as large round eyes, chubby cheeks, a small nose and a high forehead, there is also the ratio of the size of the body to the head and a certain “clumsiness”. And people find that cute.
These traits evoke innate, instinctive responses. And it applies to all people in the world. These drives can also be demonstrated experimentally: when the features characteristic of cuteness are highlighted with the help of software, the need to care for this creature intensifies in experimental subjects. And that it also works in the case of animals is evidenced by the enthusiasm that cubs arouse among visitors to zoos. In 2006, the polar bear Knut was born at the Berlin Zoo and became a sensation, the panda cubs Leni and Loni became stars, as well as a young female the hippopotamus Liberian Toni. Such animal celebrities attract crowds of visitors as well as media interest.
Many politicians can only dream of such attention, notes Sachser. He points out that no matter what advertising strategy zoos use, they usually don’t make a big fuss about having a new, say, rare venomous snake in their holdings. According to Sachser, the amount of time dogs spend in shelters before being adopted is related to how much they have distinctive features that fit the concept of cuteness. It’s no accident that the World Wide Fund for Nature has a panda as its logo, and not “some viper that’s in danger of extinction,” says Sachser.
According to this scientist, reactions to features characteristic of cuteness are already manifested in four-month-old babies. “Obviously, you can’t ask them questions, but you can show them different pictures and then watch how long these babies look where they are,” explains Sachser. He adds that they pay more attention to images that meet the cuteness criteria.
And how the concept of cuteness affects people is also used by the advertising industry. It can be traced to cars or robots. “Perhaps robots acting as caregivers are much more accepted when they meet the criteria for child cuteness,” says Sachser.
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Source: www.ceskenoviny.cz
