A quick question: how do you react when you see something cute? Do you squeal with joy? Do you suddenly have this intense urge to cuddle it and squeeze it? Do you feel like you want to eat it even though you know it would taste bad, just because it’s so freakin’ cute?
If you answered yes to all of the above, then no worries: you’re a totally normal human being. Yes, even if you’d happily consume a ridiculously fluffy and adorable baby penguin.
Believe it or not, scientists from Yale University in the United States have identified that this intense need to smush, eat and love cute things from babies to puppies is actually a normal part of being a woman. And it has a name.
Ladies, allow us to introduce you to “cute aggression” something that most of us are probably suffering from on a daily basis. Seriously.
While the scientists can’t tell us why we act this way whenever we see something adorable, this cute aggression is apparently a completely normal reaction for healthy, mentally-stable women to have when they’re presented with an image that is way too cute to handle.
The cuteness is almost unbearable!
According to Rebecca Dyer, a researcher from the cute aggression study, our need to eat and squeeze the cute thing we see comes from the “high positive-affect” that the image or the baby/puppy/tiny hedgehog has on us. The positive affect is so powerful that we actually lose our sense of control.
“You know, you can’t stand it, you can’t handle it, that kind of thing,” said Ms Dyer.
Ms Dyer noted in the experiements that the cute images not only made people react more than normal or ‘funny’ images, but that most women tended to get genuinely frustrated over the fact that they couldn’t actually cuddle the cute thing, which made them want to squeeze it or eat it even more.
Yes, again, this is perfectly normal behaviour for us womenfolk apparently…
The good news is that our cute aggression is pretty harmless and, if anything, it’s simply an over-emotional reaction to a situation that evokes powerful feelings within us.
So basically we’re all good as long as we don’t ACTUALLY eat the cute puppy or the adorable baby. Hmm… we better hide the ketchup the next time we watch Animal Rescue…
