Strange phenomenon
“Cute Aggression”: Responding to the sight of cute things with verbal outbursts of violence
Children or animals can also be just too cute!
© Stefa Nikolic / Getty Images
“The dog looks so cute today, I could smack him on the wall!” Do you know these or similar verbal outbursts when you see something cute? Don’t worry – it’s a harmless phenomenon.
Our cat is lying on the sofa, on his back, stretched out, deeply relaxed. The fluffy belly fur invites you to reach in and scratch, it’s a delightful sight. “Orrrrr, I want to smack the animal because it’s so cute!” says my husband. And I know exactly what he means – of course Notthat someone is actually physically attacked here. Rather, the exclamation is a statement that it’s almost rude when something looks that cute. But why do some people react to something actually beautiful with such reflexive “fantasies of violence”, isn’t that actually completely counterproductive?
This reaction is by no means rare and occurs in many people. “This baby is so cute, I want to crush his chubby cheeks / eat him up,” you may have heard. And nobody assumes that someone will actually bite or abuse small children afterwards. But then why say something so disturbing? The phenomenon has a name: it is called itself Cute aggressionEnglish for “cuteness aggression”.
Cute aggression sounds completely absurd at first
And that odd outburst of verbal violence at the sight of very cute things serves a pretty handy function in the brain. Because for some people, seeing cute children, animals or objects has such a strong effect, with so many overwhelmingly good feelings shooting through the brain that it is almost paralyzing for a short time. Anyone who is so busy appreciating something beautiful has no capacity for other things that our body finds essential for survival at that moment: Being alert, concentrating, scanning the environment for dangers, hearing, smelling, thinking.
And to quickly bring us back down to earth, no matter how cute that baby rabbit looks in the front yard, our brains shoot at it, countering the positive sentiments of cuteness with their antagonist: aggression. There’s that brief, confusing moment when you’re still taken in by the cuteness, but reflexively say what your brain is pumping through your synapses: “The dog is so cute today, I could put him on the wall clap!”
The brain wants to protect us from ourselves when there is a lot of cuteness
However, there is no corresponding action, because as soon as the paralyzing intoxication of cuteness has been successfully neutralized and we have our feet firmly on the ground again, our brain also stops flooding with the brute messenger substances. After all, they served their purpose – we shouldn’t be so distracted with delight for minutes that a truck runs over us while a pickpocket steals our backpack at the same time.
Only a certain part of humanity is affected by this thoroughly confusing process. Namely the one on which cute things have a particularly strong effect. So don’t worry if someone around you is under Cute aggression “suffers” – he’s just particularly receptive to sweet things.