Although cuteness can be a matter of personal preference, people tend to find youngmammalscute and adorable, and this is likely part of an evolutionary development. Cuteness serves a purpose inspecieswhose young cannot live on their own right away. People are drawn tobabies,and it’s their body proportions (large head, large eyes, and small mouth, compared with the rest of the body) that may be an evolutionary trigger or a reminder that nurturing our young is an importantadaptationfor our long-term survival as a species. Babies are helpless, so our affection for them and our instinct to protect them, regardless of whether we are related to them, makes good evolutionary sense.
The young of otheranimals that also require some level ofparental care tend to have similar facial and body proportions, and these qualities make it more likely that their own parents will providesustenanceand other resources long enough to ensure their survival. Some scientists argue that the same adoration we feel for our own young can carry over to the young of other animals who require parental care and have body proportions similar to our own young. These qualities appear in mammals mostly (especially in petdogsandcats and in mammals atzoosandaquaria and on nature programs), but people can be drawn to babylizards,frogs, andbirds as well. Austrian zoologistKonrad Lorenzcoined the termKindchenschema("baby schema") to describe this phenomenon.
In animals that are independent from birth or hatching, cuteness is not a priority. The head and body proportions of the young of these animals may be nearly identical to their tougher-looking adult forms, and this may be why human affection for younginsects,snakes, and even some types of birds is not as great.
