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When Too Cute Is Too Much, the Brain Can Get Aggressive
- trophycase 8y agoI said something similar to a girlfriend once. She didn't take it too well...
- vertline3 8y agoI've never had that trait, but I suspect it is caused by a resentful feeling of being treated like an infant.
- olyjohn 8y agoNah it's not like that at all. My girlfriend does this all the time. She sees puppies and shit like that on Reddit, and always does this like "growl" and says how she wants to "squeeze the shit out of them." It's not like she really wants to squeeze them and kill them, and it's not actually anger. It's just a really intense feeling of joy and wanting to take care of them and play with them. If there's any true aggression there, I feel like it's a result of being protective. It's probably a very biological reaction to seeing a small cute creature or person who needs care.
- pm90 8y agoRight. Probably evolutionary instinct to protect human infants. And marketers try and exploit this all the time. Perhaps most successfully in Japan.
- vertline3 8y agoYeah that's what I noticed, used in marketing a lot. I was thinking we had some feeling we were being manipulated but I guess not.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y agoIt seems likely to me that it's an expression of L'appel du Vide, or The Call of the Void. You ever stand at the edge of a tall building or bridge and feel the urge to jump? It's that feeling. One hypothesis is that our brain does this as a way of making itself more aware of the risk. It makes sense then that when we see a small and fragile thing we wish not to damage, it would trigger this mechanism.
- jm__87 8y agoI've never really bought that "Call of the Void" explanation. You can imagine fairly easily what will happen if you jump from a tall building without having the urge to do it. I've always viewed it as a legitimate momentary urge, just one that conflicts with almost every other urge we have to live, so we don't do it and don't even acknowledge the urge as legitimate (most of us, anyway).
- jplayer01 8y ago"Call of the void" isn't an explanation. It's just a definition and a label for an observed behavior/thought. There's nothing to buy.
- jm__87 8y agoPerhaps some poor grammar on my part. I was responding to the post with a hypothesis as to why some people experience the "call of the void": to make us more aware of the danger of doing an action that would kill us. My opinion is, this makes no sense. You can imagine what would happen quite easily without having the urge to do it. This is the "call of the void" explanation which I do not buy.
- sdwisely 8y agoMy girlfriend does it too, it was very confusing to me for a while. It's like a seething rage of joy.
- programmertote 8y agoI have cute aggression. I learned about that in https://priceonomics.com/why-do-we-smother-cute-things/ https://priceonomics.com/why-do-we-smother-cute-things/ which was published in 2014. So why does this article say Yale researchers first describe it in 2015?
- xvedejas 8y agoThe article says they first presented in 2013.
- Kaveren 8y agoI'm curious as to how gender and testosterone levels correlate with this. It appears that this dichotomy isn't limited to aggression, but to more emotions [0]. This article looks informative about the topic [1]. It poses the question of how disorders such as conduct disorder might affect this. That'd be a really good question to answer. [0] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797614561044 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/095679761456104... [1] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnbeh.2018.00300/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnbeh.2018.0030...
- Jach 8y agoApparently in the underlying paper they did a chi-squared test on gender and didn't see a significant difference (so also didn't report the raw data), this was surprising since I've only really seen something like this aggression affect in women and everyone's anecdotes seem to be of women. (Or maybe I'm just overly separating the desire to "tightly hug" and "squeeze until they burst".) Would be interesting to get a sample of male anime fans and their reactions to cute anime girls and see if the distribution is normal.
- jchw 8y agoI frequently remark on how cuteness is treated differently in different cultures, and I really wonder if it plays a role in how cute aggression affects people.
- malvosenior 8y agoI think this can be a learned response as a self defense against the constant barrage of “cuteness” we encounter through marketing. When you see it as manipulative it’s easy to see why you might get angry. I know I have the same reaction to all of the lullaby music in commercials.
- DisruptiveDave 8y agoArticle isn't about getting angry. And it's not necessarily about volume of cuteness, but rather intensity of a singular moment of cuteness. When my wife hugs our cat and he's being all cat cute like, she'll remark how she wants to squeeze the life out of him because she just can't stand how cute he is. I feel like that's rather common, and has no tie to anger or actual physical aggression.
- malvosenior 8y agoThe article is about over stimulation of the emotion and reward systems of the brain and how negative thoughts can help neutralize that over stimulation. I'm suggesting that same pattern may be represented by a self learned behavior that's adapted to being overexposed to cuteness.
- nate 8y agoReminded of Agnes from Despicable Me when I read this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SI6rhotAkE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SI6rhotAkE
- microtherion 8y agoI was reminded of Lonesome Lenny: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZi-Ilcr47Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZi-Ilcr47Q
- MrTonyD 8y agoYou know, I've noticed that I sometimes laugh when I hear about horrible news. I've never understood why - since there is nothing funny or laughable about those bad things. I wonder if this is related?
- freedomben 8y agoMy wife does this too. It's a horrible source of embarrassment because it evokes laughter at highly inappropriate times (such as the delivery of terrible news, such as death of a loved one). My daughter also does it. When she's in big trouble and mom and I are very mad, she will often laugh at our anger, despite knowing that it will escalate the situation. It took us a little while to realize what was happening, and that she wasn't trying to be a punk.
- sekh60 8y agoI do that too, really upsets my wife when I just can't help but laugh when I have angered her. I have taken to apologizing while laughing and saying that I acknowledge my response is inappropriate, but I can't help it. Helps sometimes.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y agoLaughter is an expression of fear. I know that sounds silly, but go watch some videos of chimps laughing and pay attention to what's going on while they're doing it.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- RandomInteger4 8y agoIs that like when I hear a British person speak and I just want to smother them in hugs and squeeze their cheeks saying "YOU'RE SO ADORABLE!"? EDIT: Joking about self control aside, I don't think I'll stop smiling for a long while afterwards if I ever visit England.
- scarygliders 8y agoThe times when I've visited the USA, folks there commented how much they loved my Scottish accent.
- bostonpete 8y ago...are you Scottish?
- scarygliders 8y agoYes
- bjlorenzen 8y agoI'm pretty sure this is just a subset of Intrusive Thoughts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrusive_thought https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrusive_thought) which affect all people equally.
- colordrops 8y agoI have minor Tourette syndrome and the compulsion to twitch is a very similar feeling to cute aggression. I also have intrusive thoughts. They are probably all related.
- rayalez 8y agoI've heard that when people are afraid of heights, when they come close to the edge of a bridge or a building they feel irresistsble desire to jump. I wonder if these two are related.
- grawprog 8y agoI'm scared of heights. When I get to the edge of something like that I don't necessarily want to jump but I do tend to try and picture in detail what would happen if I did... Though I fell off a cliff as a child and don't really want to do it again. This could be why I don't get any strong desire to jump. Been there done that, wasn't very fun.
- KAMSPioneer 8y agoI'm scared of heights, and I have no such desire. I do, as a sibling commenter said, have unwanted visualizations of falling, etc. All super irrational, I'm aware, but trying telling that to me while I'm wide-eyed and white-knuckled at the edge of a building.
- anigbrowl 8y agoConjecture, but I believe this is due to disordered preference for orienting oneself perpendicular to converging lines. Imagine yourself standing on a long straight road. Now imagine yourself looking over the side of a building, which is equivalent to looking along a similarly flat surface but from a much reduced height, as if you were lying on the road and trying to look at it over the tops of your feet. A maladaptive orientation instinct might be caused by overcompensation for astigmatism or other distortion, or a strong preference for one kind of visual cue (converging parallels) over another (the more abstract knowledge of gravity and the associated impacts. There is some evidence to suggest that premature babies are more likely to be subject to such disorders. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_cliff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_cliff
- chaval7 8y agoI bet future machine consciousness learning will result on machines thinking we’re so cute they’ll destroy us
- derefr 8y agoI feel like nobody is offering the obvious evolutionary explanation: you certainly don’t gain anything by wanting to kill/eat human babies, but it’s a completely rational impulse to want to kill/eat baby squirrels or rabbits or deer or any other thing a human hunter-gatherer might run into. “Cute” in this case means “defenseless”, which means “a free meal.”
- bobthechef 8y agoNo, because this has nothing to do with the desire to kill or harm. It actually invokes a desire to protect. It is motivated by the overwhelming adoration, if you will, for what is cute. The intensity is not "aggression" in the sense you or others seems to be thinking of. By analogy, think of two people who have not seen each other for a while, miss each other dearly, and meet one another. The hugs and physical expressions of affection are going to be more intense. I think this is similar. It is an experience of overwhelming joy.
- jm__87 8y ago> you certainly don’t gain anything by wanting to kill/eat human babies Actually, this is exactly what gorillas do. When there is a new alpha male, he will go and systematically kill all the baby gorillas who are still nursing. Why? So he can impregnate the mothers of these gorillas who are unable to reproduce while they are nursing. While human females can get pregnant while nursing a baby, they are less fertile during the first few months of breastfeeding. Now I'm not saying this the reason why some people have this impulse. Just thought I'd share some interesting info with you. Happy new year! Edit: I am not an expert on gorillas, just something I have recalled from reading Robert Sapolskys book, "Behave". I'm sure there is some nuance to this infanticidal behavior of gorillas which I have misrepresented. Apologies in advance to the primatologists who read my comment.
- wallace_f 8y agoYou shouldn't lose complete confidence like that just because of some superficial disagreement. History is filled with examples of groups being very wrong.
- amitamb 8y agoRelevant Key and Peele skit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6iC0Vi1yEg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6iC0Vi1yEg
- aaron695 8y agoLess Geo-Blocked https://www.facebook.com/ComedyCentral/videos/key-peele-cute-puppies/10156124088564030/ https://www.facebook.com/ComedyCentral/videos/key-peele-cute... And it's interesting it pre-dates the research talked about ( Published on Mar 13, 2012) the reason why perhaps the research was done? Or because it was popularised at the time? Causation or Correlation?
- pmoleri 8y agoI buy the "overwhelmed by positive emotion" explanation. As a parent I've seen this in my daughters, specially in the first years. They would hugh you strongly and in ocassions even bite. I've always understood this as some emotional overflow with no harm intended. Which makes sense, since managing emotions is not easy for toddlers.
- bobthechef 8y agoThere are adult activities during which intense emotions can manifest in stronger (not harmful) physical responses.
- stcredzero 8y agoThere is something similar to me about the satisfaction of hunger and the satisfaction of sexual desire. There is something genuinely destructive about the former and much that can mimic violence in the latter. Sometimes, I've seen people say, "Oh you are so cute, I could just eat you up!" then follow this up with a barrage of kisses and hugs. As I remember it, usually, they're older women. Sometimes I feel this way about my wife, who is naturally very, very cute. Sometimes, I really feel the urge to leave her feeling bedraggled with an excess of attention and affection.
- ineedasername 8y agoMy kids have done the same thing! It's like an extension of them nuzzling into you, and then they're not just rubbing their head into your should, they're gnawing on it a bit too. I think you're right and it's just they don't have other outlets for what is essentially a joyful emotion, and they certainly don't know "biting = hurt = bad"
- uwagan 8y agoi feel a similar aggression for parents that fawn over their cute pets or their cute kids.
- 8y ago
- shambolicfroli 8y agoFYI to readers: The article gets unnecessarily graphic about violence against animals.
- smbullet 8y agoHow are first hand accounts of a psychological phenomenon in an article describing said psychological phenomenon unnecessary?
- jearfdsa 8y agoAnecdata - the thing is real. I consider myself to be a well adjusted person, but I have a confession to make. Whenever I find myself i a toy store in a 'too cute' section, I feel tension to grow inside me. I have a compulsion to arrange toys in sexual-situation-resembling poses, stage simulated toy-crashes or break the cute atmosphere in similar a way.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago> I have a compulsion to arrange toys in sexual-situation-resembling poses, stage simulated toy-crashes or break the cute atmosphere in similar a way Why must this be a compulsion? If you had something else to do at the time, would you be unable to do it without first re-arranging the toys? If not, it strikes me as normal self-amusement/play more than anything else.
- wallace_f 8y agoI mean isn't it kind of normal? I've wandered across many a random sand-penises sculpted on the beach, and come across campsites having crude stickmen with oversize penises. And of course, everyone has heard countless sexualized jokes in their life. I think the OP has some confirmation bias going on. Taking the conclusion and using it to narrate his/her behavior. Unless OP only does that as a response to cuteness stimuli, but the crass behavior seems normally present in people without cute stimuli.
- anigbrowl 8y ago"I feel tension to grow inside me" suggests the impulse cause OP discomfort or anxiety until resolved, and OP seems fully aware that the juxtaposition of sexuality or mortality with cute children's toys is considered inappropriate because of the potential to create distress for children who encounter it. OP, if this is an unpleasant compulsion rather than an occasional whim you might want to dig into it with a therapist, either in search of a cause or a coping strategy as you prefer.
- 8y ago
- lazzlazzlazz 8y agoThis is normal behavior among my family. I've always been like this. I also know many people like this. Very odd to hear people needing to vouch that it's real.
- irq 8y agoIt's best not to take your own experiences with acceptance about literally any matter whatsoever and use it as a lens to fathom what it's like for other people.
- lazzlazzlazz 8y agoYou've over-analyzed my comment, maybe making a similar mistake as what you're warning me against.
- johnisgood 8y ago> It's best not to take your own experiences with acceptance about literally any matter whatsoever This sounds really weird to me. If not my experiences, then what, really?
- yakshaving_jgt 8y agoThe key point was not to project your own experiences and perspectives onto other people who haven't had the same experiences, and consequently hold different perspectives, i.e., the second half of the OP's sentence which you elided from your quotation.
- jplayer01 8y agoThe problem is that plenty of people flat out don't believe a behavior exists when it clearly does, just because they themselves don't experience it or behave that way. It happens so incredibly often - like people who think it's normal to have to sneeze when they go out under the sun and others who then need incontrovertible proof that this happens. I'm not sure what to call it. A lack of empathy or imagination? Lack of respect for different experiential points of view?
- c3534l 8y agoI remember there was a commedian who said "you ever see a kitten so cute, you just want to strangle it death?" or something to that effect. The audience seemed to relate.
- Bokanovsky 8y agoI think it was Sarah Millican who said that. Her sketch is here (NSFW due to language) - https://www.facebook.com/BritishComedy/videos/sarah-millican-loving-pets-too-much-contains-strong-language/1938862052997757/ https://www.facebook.com/BritishComedy/videos/sarah-millican...
- c3534l 8y agoIt wasn't. I think it was Bill Burr or Louis C.K. Some sort of short, fat, bald comedian, I guess. I get them all mixed up. And it could have been a kitten instead of a baby. But I remember it because, yes, I have felt a bit like Lenny from Mice and Men and wanted to cuddle a cute thing too violently.
- raducu 8y agoThis so much! It only happens when I play with really young kittens, but I find myself handling then rougher and rougher and I just need to stop playin because I get the feeling "I'm going to strangle this thing because it's too cute!".
- dingoegret 8y agoAhhh no this is trying to explain away some really psychotic shit
- ScottBurson 8y agoCouldn't help thinking of Bambi meets Godzilla: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-wUdetAAlY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-wUdetAAlY
- nisse72 8y agoAbsolute classic, I came here to post that very thing. But those people wouldn't really take a swipe at Bambi or Thumper, she says.
- dang 8y agoWow, there's a good Youtube comment in that thread: I remember meeting Mr. Newland in BC back in 2007 where he explained that this was made in the last minutes for his final project in animation school. He ran out of time helping his fellow classmates with their projects and had nothing to make. That's why this has no colour. It had to be 1 minute 30 seconds long so he lengthened the movie with text and nail movement. Thinking nothing of it, he passed his class, and this was submitted and won an animation award.
- MLPthrow 8y agoExplains fluffy ponies. Please vouch for me. I am not admitting I know about this on my real account.
- dalmu1 8y agoAggretsuko
- neil1023 8y agoI feel as if this is just a trend in the way people communicate. It's common in the U.S. to describe cute animals and babies this way. It might've stemmed from pop culture (i.e. movies, TV shows).
- ckmox 8y agowe call this "gigil" in the philippines http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20170714-an-untranslatable-word-for-pure-joy http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20170714-an-untranslatable-...
- jelliclesfarm 8y agoThis isn’t unlike..”these are tears of joy. I am SO happy that I am shedding tears”. Same phenomenon. The one about ‘tears of joy’ is something I chased down the rabbit hole. It has to do with lachrimal glands which are basically our tear ducts. Turns out each ‘type’ of tears has an unique signature. And it’s prettt distinct and recognizable under a microscope. They are connected to fight/flight impulse ..our adrenals..cortisol levels or stress situation. One can cry from relief post-stress or from sadness or from joy. Or from pain after stubbing a toe or cutting oneself. And they are all different. More here: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-microscopic-structures-of-dried-human-tears-180947766/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-microscopi... So..I want to say that this expression of seeming violence after seeing something cute can be traced back to the same pathways.
- raducu 8y agoI don't like kittens because I feel like they are too qute and I feel like strangling them -- I thought I was insane, phew, glad I'm not.
- kazinator 8y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxvzEfI0BFU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxvzEfI0BFU
- jowdones 8y agoI dunno man, it seems perverse and wrong. Or this "About half of all adults have those thoughts sometimes, says Stavropoulos", I just don't buy it. Btw, lots of sick people posting on this thread. Get a check.
- reactor 8y agohah, this is so true, I've never given much thought as to why its happening, but I have got a newborn about a month old, he's very cute that when he with me and wife is not around, I try to bite or squeeze him :)
- sickcodebruh 8y agoThere’s a similar effect mostly experienced by women: they want to eat babies. Not really — there’s no danger — but the idea pops into the head. My wife had our daughter seven weeks ago and noticed it, we’ve had friends say things from the common, “I want to eat you up” to an outright faux aggressive “I WANT TO EAT HER” from one of her friends. Some articles claim it has something to do with the way they smell. https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2013/0923/Why-do-people-want-to-eat-babies-Scientists-explain https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2013/0923/Why-do-people-wa...
- sometime 8y agoPerhaps it's simply play drive, much like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6olQ-GGfCJE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6olQ-GGfCJE ("corgimorphization") Cuteness makes us want to hug, tease and whirl around the little being (basically an adaptation for the offspring to be encouraged to test social boundaries, individual limitations, and explore how the world works), but if it's too small or fragile for that or just a picture on a screen, then one gets a little angry for not being allowed to do so (like seeing delicious food and not being allowed to eat it). At the same time one is primed for playful action (biting, pinching, squeezing), so anger already is nearby in the space of emotions. This might also be aggravated between different species as the reactions might not match the expectations.
- known 8y agoThat's the difference between https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxytocin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxytocin and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dopamine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dopamine
- fattypouch 8y ago"ITS SO FLUFFY I WANT TO DIEEEE"
- itry2develop 8y agoHow timely, we have a puppy that gets constant comments about how cute it is. The wife and I both confessed to one another about having this strange urge to attack it.