Pinch a child’s cheeks. Petting a puppy very hard. You clench your fists at the sight of a little kitten.Hug (or bite) our partner as a sign of love. all these acts have something in common: they are expressions of “adorable aggression”, a curious psychological phenomenon that has a surprising scientific clarification.
Adorability, more than just visual
The term ‘adorable aggression’ or ‘cute aggression’ (in English, cute aggression) also called ‘playful aggression’ we owe it too the social psychologist Oriana Aragón and her team, who defined it in a scientific article published in 2015 in the academic journal Psychological science.
Specifically, these authors sought to explore why some people respond eminently positive stimuli with ambivalent expressions (for example, smiles and tears, which we normally associate with negative emotions). In the course of their research, they documented that many people, exposed to cute or adorable stimuli, expressed the desire to respond with “superficial” aggression, without a real desire to harm the object of their emotions.
In this regard, Oxford University professor Morten L.Kringelbach argues in a piece published on the institution’s website that “adorableness” is much more than something purely visual. In contrast, explains the expert, it constitutes a much more complex phenomenon, which involves all our senses and forcefully attracts our attention, triggering rapid and intense brain activity. The goal: to make us more compassionate, for the good of our species.
Features that catch our attention
It turns out that human babies,much more than those of other mammalian species (who are sometimes even capable of walking and running within a few hours of birth) need constant care and attention survive.for many years.And,according to Kringelbach,their way of achieving this is to make us look like monkeys.
It seems that people’s brains work in such a way that there are a number of aesthetic characteristics of children (large eyes and head, short and stocky limbs…) which trigger this rapid emotional cascade.Some neuroimaging research has found that the orbitofrontal cortex activates at high speed (one-seventh of a second) when viewing images of children; In this way, they capture our attention before we can even process the fact that what we are seeing is a child.
Still, the cascade of events in our brains when we see cute things It doesn’t end hear.This initial impact generates a much slower and longer chain of processes, associated with complex behaviors such as care, emotional bonding, compassion and protection.
Mechanisms to find balance
While all this is happening (and why this is so), our body secretes a series of hormones (which in short act as a kind of chemical messengers in our body, preparing the body to respond to various situations). According to an article from the scientific community Frontiers in Endocrinology,one of them is the Oxytocin,called the “love hormone” because its levels have been observed to increase in situations such as childbirth,sexual intercourse,giving or receiving physical affection,breastfeeding or during exercise. Another is vasopressin, which is associated with defensive and protective, sometimes aggressive, behaviors.
Taking all this into account, Dr. Katherine Stavropoulos of the University of California Riverside (USA) proposed in 2018 in the high-impact academic journal Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience that this explosion of activity in various parts of the brain (mainly some associated with reward and emotion mechanisms) could overwhelm our mental faculties, which is a problem (after all, caring for children requires more than giving them constant, excessive attention; you also need to be mindful of the environment and resources to protect and nourish them).
Thus,to avoid this overload,Stavropoulos defends these superficial aggressive expressions They could work by rebalancing our emotional response and helping us regain control of our actions and attention.
Neuroscience of compassion
We don’t want to damage it, but rather the opposite.. Many times we think little about what happens in our heads, fascinated as we are by the object of our emotions.
Therefore, it is easy for us to overlook the complex processes taking place in our body and brain, which operate in delicate ways emotional balance to ensure our survival and that of our species.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about all this is understanding that by studying this type of phenomenon we can find the keys some of the best qualities that define ussuch as empathy and compassion towards other beings.
References
Oriana R.Aragón, Margaret S. Clark, John A. Bargh et al. Dimorphic expressions of positive emotion: Displays of both caring and aggression in response to nice stimuli. Psychological Sciences (2015). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797614561044
Morten L.Kringelbach. How cute things hijack our brains and drive behaviour.University of Oxford (2016). Consulted online at on November 18, 2024.
Carter CS.The oxytocin-vasopressin pathway in the context of love and fear. Frontiers in endocrinology (2017). DOI: 10.3389/slot.2017.00356.
Katherine K. M-Stavropoulos, Laura A. Alba. “He’s so cute I could crush him!”: Understanding the neural mechanisms of cute aggression. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience (2018). DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2018.00300
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