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.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday January 01 2019, @08:09PM (1 child)
Consider post partum depression. Perfectly rational(?) mothers resent their new babies. Why? I'm thinking this excessive cuteness is at least remotely related, but without the hormones.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 02 2019, @03:47AM
A significant (majority?) of 'post partum depression' is a guilt/anxiety reaction to the fact that the baby looks more like its daddy than it does the husband.
But you can't say that out loud, because then you are accusing every mother with PPD of something that only some are guilty of.