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posted by n1 on Tuesday January 01 2019, @03:11PM   Printer-friendly
from the death-to-the-adorable dept.

Submitted via IRC for takyon

When Too Cute Is Too Much, The Brain Can Get Aggressive

The holiday season is all about cute. You've got those ads with adorable children and those movies about baby animals with big eyes.

But when people encounter too much cuteness, the result can be something scientists call "cute aggression."

People "just have this flash of thinking: 'I want to crush it' or 'I want to squeeze it until pops' or 'I want to punch it,' " says Katherine Stavropoulos, a psychologist in the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Riverside.

About half of all adults have those thoughts sometimes, says Stavropoulos, who published a study about the phenomenon in early December in Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience. But those people wouldn't really take a swipe at Bambi or Thumper, she says.

"When people feel this way, it's with no desire to cause harm," Stavropoulos says. The thoughts appear to be an involuntary response to being overwhelmed by a positive emotion.


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  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday January 01 2019, @03:57PM (1 child)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday January 01 2019, @03:57PM (#780635) Journal

    If something is excessively cute, just eat it.

    Oh - you thought those signs in restaurants were just a joke? "Unattended children will be used in tomorrow's soup." Downeasters (also known as "Mainiacs") prefer to use unattended children as crab bait, but they get to the soup eventually.

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  • (Score: 2) by MostCynical on Tuesday January 01 2019, @09:46PM

    by MostCynical (2589) on Tuesday January 01 2019, @09:46PM (#780743) Journal

    Like this [edgarsmission.org.au]?

    --
    "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex