One more possibility: our cuteness detector is simply our threat detector for animate objects with a minus sign. Bunnies are especially cute because we’re especially confident that they can’t hurt us. People who feel threatened by the responsibility that babies represent don’t find them cute.
A lot of predators have pretty adorable cubs. If anything the babies should be identified as more of a threat, since the mother protecting them will usually be more motivated than if she were simply trying to eat you.
May be something to that. Other animals have an innocence factor about them that humans lose pretty quickly for me. Especially by 2 years old or so, I start finding some human kid behavior more manipulative than cute.
One more possibility: our cuteness detector is simply our threat detector for animate objects with a minus sign. Bunnies are especially cute because we’re especially confident that they can’t hurt us. People who feel threatened by the responsibility that babies represent don’t find them cute.
A lot of predators have pretty adorable cubs. If anything the babies should be identified as more of a threat, since the mother protecting them will usually be more motivated than if she were simply trying to eat you.
May be something to that. Other animals have an innocence factor about them that humans lose pretty quickly for me. Especially by 2 years old or so, I start finding some human kid behavior more manipulative than cute.