On Cuteness: Unlocking the Parental Brain and Beyond

Ethology, 2009

Ethologist Konrad Lorenz proposed that baby schema ('Kindchenschema') is a set of infantile physical features such as the large head, round face and big eyes that is perceived as cute and motivates caretaking behavior in other individuals, with the evolutionary function of enhancing offspring survival. Previous work on this fundamental concept was restricted to schematic baby representations or correlative approaches. Here, we experimentally tested the effects of baby schema on the perception of cuteness and the motivation for caretaking using photographs of infant faces. Employing quantitative techniques, we parametrically manipulated the baby schema content to produce infant faces with high (e.g. round face and high forehead), and low (e. g. narrow face and low forehead) baby schema features that retained all the characteristics of a photographic portrait. Undergraduate students (n = 122) rated these infants' cuteness and their motivation to take care of them. The high baby schema infants were rated as more cute and elicited stronger motivation for caretaking than the unmanipulated and the low baby schema infants. This is the first experimental proof of the baby schema effects in actual infant faces. Our findings indicate that the baby schema response is a critical function of human social cognition that may be the basis of caregiving and have implications for infant-caretaker interactions.

Biology letters, 2015

The factors that contribute to individual differences in the reward value of cute infant facial characteristics are poorly understood. Here we show that the effect of cuteness on a behavioural measure of the reward value of infant faces is greater among women reporting strong maternal tendencies. By contrast, maternal tendencies did not predict women's subjective ratings of the cuteness of these infant faces. These results show, for the first time, that the reward value of infant facial cuteness is greater among women who report being more interested in interacting with infants, implicating maternal tendencies in individual differences in the reward value of infant cuteness. Moreover, our results indicate that the relationship between maternal tendencies and the reward value of infant facial cuteness is not due to individual differences in women's ability to detect infant cuteness. This latter result suggests that individual differences in the reward value of infant cuteness...

Evolution and Human Behavior, 2010

Neonatal features in the newborn are thought to trigger parental care, the most fundamental prosocial behaviour. The underlying mechanisms that release parental care have not yet been resolved. Here we report sex differences in the ability to discriminate cues to cuteness despite equivalence in the capability to discriminate age and facial expression. These differences become apparent in a task where adults were asked to choose the cuter of two babies. While women could reliably choose the cuter infant, men had more difficulty in doing so. When showing the exact same face pairs but asking to choose the younger or the happier baby, there was no sex difference. These results suggest that the sex difference in the ability to discriminate cues to cuteness in infants underlies female-specific emotive responses. We argue that this reactivity expressed by women evolved to ensure that a female allocates her caretaking resources to her youngest offspring while it needs mothering care.

Frontiers in Psychology, 2014

The baby schema concept was originally proposed as a set of infantile traits with high appeal for humans, subsequently shown to elicit caretaking behavior and to affect cuteness perception and attentional processes. However, it is unclear whether the response to the baby schema may be extended to the human-animal bond context. Moreover, questions remain as to whether the cute response is constant and persistent or whether it changes with development. In the present study we parametrically manipulated the baby schema in images of humans, dogs, and cats. We analyzed responses of 3-6 year-old children, using both explicit (i.e., cuteness ratings) and implicit (i.e., eye gaze patterns) measures. By means of eye-tracking, we assessed children's preferential attention to images varying only for the degree of baby schema and explored participants' fixation patterns during a cuteness task. For comparative purposes, cuteness ratings were also obtained in a sample of adults. Overall our results show that the response to an infantile facial configuration emerges early during development. In children, the baby schema affects both cuteness perception and gaze allocation to infantile stimuli and to specific facial features, an effect not simply limited to human faces. In line with previous research, results confirm human positive appraisal toward animals and inform both educational and therapeutic interventions involving pets, helping to minimize risk factors (e.g., dog bites).

Attractive individuals are perceived as having various positive personality qualities. Positive personality qualities can in turn increase perceived attractiveness. However, the developmental origins of the link between attractiveness and personality are not understood. This is important because infant attractiveness ('cuteness') elicits caregiving from adults, and infant personality ('temperament') shapes caregiving behaviour. While research suggests that adults have more positive attitudes towards cuter infants, it is not known whether positive infant temperament can increase the perception of infant cuteness. We investigated the impact of experimentally established infant temperament on adults' perception of cuteness and desire to view individual faces. Ataseline, adults rated the cuteness of, and keypressed to view, images of unfamiliar infants with neutral facial expressions. Training required adults to learn about an infant's 'temperament', through repeated pairing of the neutral infant face with positive or negative facial expressions and vocalizations. Adults then re-rated the original neutral infant faces. Post-training, there were significant changes from baseline: infants who were mostly happy were perceived as cuter and adults expended greater effort to view them. Infants who were mostly sad were not perceived as cuter and adults expended less effort to view them. Our results suggest that temperament has clear consequences for how adults perceive 'bonnie' babies. Perception of infant cuteness is not based on physical facial features alone, and is modifiable through experience.

Emotion, 2009

Neuropsychologia, 2020

What a cute baby! Preliminary evidence from a fMRI study for the association between mothers' neural responses to infant faces and activation of the parental care system, Neuropsychologia (2020), doi:

Social Neuroscience, 2013

Human infants' complete dependence on adult caregiving suggests that mechanisms associated with adult responsiveness to infant cues might be deeply embedded in the brain. Behavioural and neuroimaging research has produced converging evidence for adults' positive disposition to infant cues, but these studies have not investigated directly the valence of adults' reactions, how they are moderated by biological and social factors, and if they relate to child caregiving. This study examines implicit affective responses of 90 adults toward faces of human and non-human (cats and dogs) infants and adults. Implicit reactions were assessed with Single Category Implicit Association Tests, and reports of childrearing behaviours were assessed by the Parental Style Questionnaire. The results showed that human infant faces represent highly biologically relevant stimuli that capture attention and are implicitly associated with positive emotions. This reaction holds independent of gender and parenthood status and is associated with ideal parenting behaviors.

PLOS One, 2008

Darwin originally pointed out that there is something about infants which prompts adults to respond to and care for them, in order to increase individual fitness, i.e. reproductive success, via increased survivorship of one's own offspring. Lorenz proposed that it is the specific structure of the infant face that serves to elicit these parental responses, but the biological basis for this remains elusive. Here, we investigated whether adults show specific brain responses to unfamiliar infant faces compared to adult faces, where the infant and adult faces had been carefully matched across the two groups for emotional valence and arousal, as well as size and luminosity. The faces also matched closely in terms of attractiveness. Using magnetoencephalography (MEG) in adults, we found that highly specific brain activity occurred within a seventh of a second in response to unfamiliar infant faces but not to adult faces. This activity occurred in the medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC), an area implicated in reward behaviour, suggesting for the first time a neural basis for this vital evolutionary process. We found a peak in activity first in mOFC and then in the right fusiform face area (FFA). In mOFC the first significant peak (p,0.001) in differences in power between infant and adult faces was found at around 130 ms in the 10-15 Hz band. These early differences were not found in the FFA. In contrast, differences in power were found later, at around 165 ms, in a different band (20-25 Hz) in the right FFA, suggesting a feedback effect from mOFC. These findings provide evidence in humans of a potential brain basis for the ''innate releasing mechanisms'' described by Lorenz for affection and nurturing of young infants. This has potentially important clinical applications in relation to postnatal depression, and could provide opportunities for early identification of families at risk. Citation: Kringelbach ML, Lehtonen A, Squire S, Harvey AG, Craske MG, et al (2008) A Specific and Rapid Neural Signature for Parental Instinct. PLoS ONE 3(2): e1664.