A romantic spark this Valentine’s Day could lead to playful bites of a partner, tears of joy at the sight of an engagement ring or the birth of a baby who’s so cute you just want to pinch him.
Don’t worry, that little baby is safe. Those physical displays of what might look like aggression actually signal intense love. And they are perfectly normal, saysOriana Aragon, PhD, a social psychologist and assistant professor of marketing at the University of Cincinnati.
Oriana Aragon | Photo/Andrew Higley/UC Marketing + Brand
“Those strong feelings are welling up in us, and we are displaying something that’s the opposite of care and affection,” she says. “We’re biting and pinching and doing things that on the surface are associated with aggression.”
Aragon has spent more than a decade researching dimorphous expressions, which is when outside displays or expressions seemingly don’t match what a person is feeling. These dimorphous expressions can be exhibited in many ways, including tears of joy, nervous laughter, pinching babies, squeezing puppies or playfully biting a romantic partner.
The mismatch of feelings and expressions actually are very common withAragon’s researchfinding more than 75% of people cry tears of joy at some point in their life. Other expressions, while less common, aren’t unusual.
“When people do them, they seem to do more than one,” Aragon says. “And some people don’t do them at all. The person who cries at a wedding is more likely to be the person who pinches the baby’s cheeks and also more likely to be the person who would playfully bite a lover.”
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.
Photo/Jane Rubtsova/iStock
Aragon’s interest in the subject sparked when she saw actressLeslie Bibb on an episode of “Conan” with Conan O’Brien, telling the host about finding a dog or baby so cute, she wanted to punch them.
The shock of how Bibb exhibited such intense and extreme emotions led Aragon to investigate the seemingly contradictory feelings that people experience.
