The evolutionary psychology of cuteness: manipulating eye-to-face proportions in stuffed animals to better understand why some things are cuter than others

Abstract

Human infants are highly vulnerable and require the care of an adult in order to survive. The motivation for an adult to take care of its offspring may be in-part due to the perception of the infant as cute. The perception of visual cuteness is facilitated by the face and body proportions of the infant. A large round head, in proportion to the body, with large eyes are features that cause an infant to visually be perceived as cute, this is known as “Baby Schema.” This perception of cuteness elicits a care giving urge with in the viewer. Non-human animals can also exhibit similar proportions and be perceived as cute by humans. This is also true for stuffed animals. This study used images of stuffed animals with increased and decreased eye size to assess how perceived cuteness is influenced by these changes. This online study had participants rate, in terms of cuteness, how cute they found each image. Results were analyzed to determine the optimal eye size for increased cuteness perception. While the data trends behaved to support medium eye size yielding the highest cuteness ratings, results were not found to be statistically significant and the study is inconclusive. Future studies should aim for a larger population size with a wider range of ages for participants. Keywords: Baby Schema, stuffed animals, cuteness