Science of Cuteness

According to scientists at the University of Alberta in Canada, good-looking babies have a definite advantage. A research team lead by Dr Andrew Harrell found that parents of cute newborns were more responsive and affectionate than mothers of less attractive babies. Gorgeous children also seemed to receive more notice from teachers and other adults as they grew up.

Interestingly, babies seem to be just as prejudice. Research by psychologist Alan Slater and his team from Exeter University in the UK found that from the moment babies are born, they prefer to look at pretty faces. Their study supports the idea that babies are born with a well-developed system of perception and Slater speculates that pretty faces appeal to babies since they fit the prototype of a human face. Research has shown that by melding together hundreds of faces with different characteristics, the end result is an attractive face!

Credit: Erik Jager

Adult gorillas have flattened heads and protruding jaws

Cute animals?

Our imagination and abstracting tendencies mean that we also find animals, pictures and even concepts cute. For years, market research has looked into the images that people find appealing and has found that cuteness sells. Walt Disney fully exploits the attraction of cuteness. As Stephen Jay Gould, the American biologist and author, describes in his essay on the evolution of Mickey Mouse, "the magic kingdom trades on a biological illusion- our ability to abstract and our propensity to transfer inappropriately to other animals the fitting responses we make to changing form in the growth of our own bodies."

Over the years, adult humans have evolved to look more child-like. Whereas baby apes and baby humans look fairly similar, apes grow up to have flattened heads and protruding, chinless jaws while humans retain their flat faces and smooth brow. During the past millennia, we have evolved to retain the large, rounded heads, prominent eyes, small teeth and hairlessness of our childhood.

Lorenz believes that we retain our cuteness because, as opposed to other animals, our big brains never really stop developing. We are able to keep learning new things throughout our life, so perhaps this is why we retain our appearance of youthfulness. But it also means that we probably find modern humans much more attractive than our ancestors the Neanderthals…

New Scientist - Babies prefer to gaze upon beautiful faces
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6355

The Scotsman - Ugly Children Get Less Attention
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=391872005