Cute aggression: Why do cute things make us 'angry'? - BBC Bitesize (2024)

FAQs

Cute aggression: Why do cute things make us 'angry'? - BBC Bitesize? ›

It's called cute aggression or playful aggression. Cute aggression is a type of 'dimorphous expression'. That's when your external actions or expressions don't match what you're feeling on the inside. Another example of a dimorphous expression would be when you're so happy, you can't help but cry.

In psychology, the phenomenon is called cute aggression, which may include desires to squeeze, crush, pinch, or even bite an object of our affection. But cute aggression doesn't appear to be motivated by vicious intent. Instead, scientists think it is a way we cope with intense positive emotions.

That's why some experts think cute aggression is a kind of “emergency brake” for our emotions. Seeing something so cute sends our positive emotions skyrocketing, which, the theory goes, triggers our brains to release some more negative impulses in response – it's a sort of emotional counterweight.

Cute aggression refers to an urge to squeeze, bite, or pinch something cute like a young animal or a human baby without any desire to cause them harm. In response to positive experiences, some people express their feelings in a dimorphous manner, meaning they show both positive and negative reactions.

Cute aggression is the brain's way of coping with the strong response in the brain's emotion and reward systems when we see cute things. The brain uses aggression to counterbalance the overwhelming positive emotions of the two systems. This phenomenon is called a dimorphous expression of emotion.

Think of whe people say that something is so cute they could squeeze it. Scientifically, it's known as a dimorphous expression, or what appears to be a negative expression of emotions towards extremely positive experiences. Another form of dimorphous expression is crying at positive experiences.

It is a common type of dimorphous display, where a person experiences positive and negative expressions simultaneously in a disorganised manner. Individuals experiencing cute aggression may find themselves clenching their jaw or fists, with the urge to squish, pinch or bite an adorable baby, animal, or object.

If so, you may be feeling something called cute aggression! Don't worry, it's a perfectly normal and harmless thing. Cute aggression is a common human response to adorableness. It helps us balance our emotions so we can keep our cool.

It may be because we look for cute as an escape and so aren't seeking the darker story. We don't see what we aren't looking for. Or it may be that cuteness itself invites abuse. Cute things, defenceless and baby-like in need of our care are necessarily devoid of power, strength and agency.

Those physical displays of what might look like aggression actually signal intense love. And they are perfectly normal, says Oriana Aragon, Ph. D., a social psychologist and assistant professor of marketing at the University of Cincinnati.

Why do I clench my teeth when I see something cute? ›

Aragon is a leading expert on dimorphous expressions and first identified the phenomenon of cute aggression, which causes people to grit their teeth, clench their fists or feel the urge to bite, pinch and squeeze something cute. While the actions might seem aggressive, there's no desire to cause harm.

This is called petting induced or overstimulation aggression. It's a common behavior in many cats, and is something that can be both frustrating and frightening until you learn how to manage this behavior with your cat.

Cuteness on the brain

When we encounter something cute, it ignites fast brain activity in regions such as the orbitofrontal cortex, which are linked to emotion and pleasure. It also attracts our attention in a biased way: babies have privileged access to entering conscious awareness in our brains.

A Spectrum of Bites:

The former often falls under the realm of “cute aggression,” a phenomenon where intense positive emotions like adoration trigger playful, seemingly aggressive behaviors. It's a way to manage overwhelming emotional arousal, channeling it into a harmless, even endearing expression.

Another strategy is to redirect their aggression towards a non-living object. For example, they can squeeze a stress ball or punch a pillow to release tension. This can help prevent them from acting aggressively towards the cute stimulus or other people.

Noradrenaline is created in the adrenal glands. Noradrenaline is created and released after CRH and ACTH affect the adrenal glands. Cute Aggression is the feeling one gets when they witness something cute and that sight fills them with so much happiness and excitement, that they want to hurt the cute object.

The desire to squeeze a puppy or pinch a baby's cheeks might have an evolutionary basis that makes people better caretakers and contributes to our survival, Popular Mechanics reported. Oriana Aragon, PhD, a social psychologist and assistant professor of marketing in the University of Cincinnati's Carl H.

“What we found in our original study was that when individuals were feeling this strong sort of adoration and then they showed the 'cute aggression', it helped folks to come down off of that very strong emotional experience – there was this sort of ability to help them to regulate their own emotions,” Aragon said.

Cuteness overload: An overload of cuteness; when something or someone is so super cute that there is no word for it. Urban Dictionary, 2008.