Chapter 42
Cute
People Affected: everyone
Type of Emotion: sensory reward
Sensory Triggers: the visual and audible differences that separate newborns from children older than 33 months
Mental Effect: positive
Key Feature: not triggered before 33 months
Key Feature: the younger the child, the stronger the effect
Key Feature: effect generally stronger in women
Involuntary Expression: momentary smiling
Type of Emotion: sensory reward
Sensory Triggers: the visual and audible differences that separate newborns from children older than 33 months
Mental Effect: positive
Key Feature: not triggered before 33 months
Key Feature: the younger the child, the stronger the effect
Key Feature: effect generally stronger in women
Involuntary Expression: momentary smiling
Purpose
Cute encourages everyone to interact with infantile kin.
Cute encourages infantile interaction because affection does not. Infants do not trigger affection in others. They have not accumulated the past interaction required to trigger affection. Also, they cannot begin accumulating the required past interaction because they cannot talk or walk.
Sensory Triggers
Visual cute is triggered by the sight of:
Audible affection is triggered by the sound of a voice with very high pitch and resonance.
Cute is mistakenly triggered by non-kin. You feel cute when you see infants who belong to co-workers or strangers.
Cute is mistakenly triggered by non-human infants, like puppies or kittens.
Cute is mistakenly triggered by scaled-down objects, like the Mini Cooper or Legoland.
Cute is not triggered before 33 months. Infants do not like kittens and toy soldiers, but older children do. Infants cannot transfer knowledge to newborns, but older children can. Older children can help infants learn to speak.
Mental Effect
Cute encourages everyone to interact with infantile kin.
Cute encourages infantile interaction because affection does not. Infants do not trigger affection in others. They have not accumulated the past interaction required to trigger affection. Also, they cannot begin accumulating the required past interaction because they cannot talk or walk.
Sensory Triggers
Visual cute is triggered by the sight of:
- smaller scale bodies, face, hands, feet
- relatively larger scale eyes
- clumsy walking
Audible affection is triggered by the sound of a voice with very high pitch and resonance.
Cute is mistakenly triggered by non-kin. You feel cute when you see infants who belong to co-workers or strangers.
Cute is mistakenly triggered by non-human infants, like puppies or kittens.
Cute is mistakenly triggered by scaled-down objects, like the Mini Cooper or Legoland.
Cute is not triggered before 33 months. Infants do not like kittens and toy soldiers, but older children do. Infants cannot transfer knowledge to newborns, but older children can. Older children can help infants learn to speak.
Mental Effect
Cute varies with a child’s age. The younger the child, the stronger the effect it triggers in others. Newborns trigger the strongest cute. Children that are 33 months or older do not trigger cute. Children stop triggering cute when they can trigger strong affection in others.
The end of cute is the third of four reasons for the terrible-two’s.
The end of cute is the third of four reasons for the terrible-two’s.
Happiness Dissected is a more practical version of The Origin of Emotions.