Don’t bite the baby

If you’ve ever wanted to bite a baby’s tiny foot or put a puppy in your pocket so you can squeeze it all day, you are not a monster. Thanks to scientific research, we now understand why you and I and many others have this strange compulsion to squeeze, bite, and otherwise gobble up adorable human and baby animals. It’s called “cute aggression,” and it’s all about balancing out the big emotions in your brain.

If your great Aunt Tilda pinched your cheeks when you were little or hugged you a bit too hard, you should forgive her now. She wasn’t being mean or weird. Her brain was just overwhelmed by your extreme cuteness, and she needed to come down off that high so she could function again.

In 2018, a psychologist named Katherine Meltzoff at the University of California Riverside decided to prove that cute aggression is an actual brain thing, not just a weird Aunt Tilda thing. She did this by putting electrode caps on 54 adults and then showing them photos of these four groups: animal babies, animal adults, human babies, and human babies whose photos were “digitally enhanced” to have even bigger eyes and cheeks.

Then she let the electrodes watch what happened. The results showed that when the brain’s reward center lit up nice and bright, the test subjects also felt a higher level of cute aggression. They’d hit that magical level of “It’s so cute, I can’t handle it. It’s killing me with cuteness.”

I try not to use social media much, but when I do, the baby animals get me every time. A tsunami of cuteness washes over me when I see a sleepy kitten with tiny pink toe beans. Or a beagle puppy with a boopable black nose and velvety brown ears? Lord, help me.

And when I see a new baby with those delicious rolls of fat on its thighs, it’s so precious it’s painful. I want to reach right through the screen and squeeze it while covering its head in kisses.

According to the research, this impulse to squeeze and bite an adorable thing is the brain’s way of tamping down an overwhelming feeling. Maybe it’s a little like sucking a lemon to lessen the burn of a tequila shot. Or putting your tongue on the roof of your mouth to counteract the brain freeze after a big gulp of cherry slush. The brain always tries to regulate emotions so things don’t get too crazy.

The Filipino language has a specific word for the phenomenon of cute aggression. They call it “gigil,” (which sounds like the English word “giggle” but with a different meaning). In Filipino culture, “gigil” is defined as “an uncontrollable feeling when one is overwhelmed by an emotion, typically used about something cute such as a baby or a puppy.”

But it’s not just babies and puppies that make the brain react in weird ways. Many of us get teary-eyed during the happiest moments of a movie. The most enthusiastic Taylor Swift fans scream as if they’re being murdered when they see the superstar walk out on stage. Sometimes the intense sadness of a funeral triggers an inexplicable urge to laugh. The way we express ourselves when we’re overwhelmed doesn’t always match the emotion of the moment.

So, the next time you pretend to devour a baby’s foot or you grit your teeth at the site of a golden retriever pup that you want to squeeze like a sheet of bubble wrap, rest assured that your brain is simply doing its job. It’s all about balance and regulation in a world of extreme emotions.

Just don’t squeeze too hard or leave teeth marks, and everyone will be just fine.

Gwen Rockwood is a syndicated freelance columnist. Email her at gwenrockwood5@gmail.com. Her book is available on Amazon.