There may be two sides of the effect. First, sense of cuteness could lead people to keep domestic animals, and having domestic animals was an evolutionary advantage. Second, the way how animals lose their cuteness when they are older may be explained by our need to eat them later.
Or, alternatively, we can think that animal cuteness has evolved first when people domesticated dogs, which were one of the first domestic species, and has nothing to do with eating them later—rabbit cuteness being a side effect. Baby cuteness could be originally a different instinct, but these two instincts later merged.
We need more data. Cultural influences play certainly some role, whose extent is hardly predictable to me. One may do some research of how cuteness is perceived within primitive tribes at New Guinea, for example. I am far from sure that cuteness is mainly a “hardwired” feeling, as opposed to learned.
What about domestication?
There may be two sides of the effect. First, sense of cuteness could lead people to keep domestic animals, and having domestic animals was an evolutionary advantage. Second, the way how animals lose their cuteness when they are older may be explained by our need to eat them later.
Or, alternatively, we can think that animal cuteness has evolved first when people domesticated dogs, which were one of the first domestic species, and has nothing to do with eating them later—rabbit cuteness being a side effect. Baby cuteness could be originally a different instinct, but these two instincts later merged.
We need more data. Cultural influences play certainly some role, whose extent is hardly predictable to me. One may do some research of how cuteness is perceived within primitive tribes at New Guinea, for example. I am far from sure that cuteness is mainly a “hardwired” feeling, as opposed to learned.