Why Do We Feel the Need to Squeeze Cute Things?

Why Do We Feel the Need to Squeeze Cute Things?
Chihuahua puppy.kpgolfpro/Pixabay
|Updated:

If any of the collected photographs you see here cause you to emit high-pitched noises or ache to cradle the pictured animal tight in your arms, you might be experiencing a bout of “cute aggression.”

The phrase refers to a phenomenon during which we catch sight of a living thing deemed “cute,” usually a baby or an animal or — double-whammy — a baby animal, and feel an overwhelming desire to play with the subject’s features; a compulsion to tickle its feet; the need to tease its rumples or bulges of fat; the want to bury our faces into its belly.

(Smitt/iStock)
Smitt/iStock
Rebecca Bauman
Rebecca Bauman
Author
Author’s Selected Articles