Well, there are clearly behavioral traits other than the cute response that go into protecting human infants; if phenotypical cuteness was the only factor here, for example, there’d be little incentive to preferentially protect your own children. Parents that I’ve talked to have on occasion described their own kids as apocalyptically cute relative to pretty much anything else, but I’m pretty sure there are things other than phenotype involved here.
I don’t think the evidence for a pedomorphic interpretation of cuteness is quite conclusive, but there do seem to be a serious dearth of competing hypotheses, and the evidence is certainly suggestive: the combination of small body size, a rounded body and head of large size relative to limbs, big eyes, soft features, playful behavior etc. all seem like they add up to a pretty good match. It also seems to be a culturally universal phenomenon, and those are quite rare.
Alicorn’s point about cuteness giving us an unusual number of false positives relative to (say) sexiness is well taken, but I’m not sure how strong it actually is; superstimuliforsexiness that don’t match real human phenotypes are definitely out there. Sexual selection’s also under intense pressure relative to most other evolutionary cues, which might imply a need for our instincts in that area to be more accurate, although it seems (to my non-biologist self) like childrearing should be in the same ballpark.
Superstimuli for sexiness are like superstimuli for taste: take the reproductively best things in the ancestral environment, and exaggerate their characteristics outside of what was found there. For example, prominent sexual characteristics are sexy; Escher girls made mostly of breasts and buttocks are therefore sexier. Watanuki is such an example; the gangliness and androgyny are are but possible, the legs and facial structure are exaggerated but not that far from realistic equivalents.
Also, are many people sincerely attracted to Jessica Rabbit? It seems to me like she only represents sexiness, like we immediately understand a stick figure in a skirt to mean “woman”.
Well, there are clearly behavioral traits other than the cute response that go into protecting human infants; if phenotypical cuteness was the only factor here, for example, there’d be little incentive to preferentially protect your own children. Parents that I’ve talked to have on occasion described their own kids as apocalyptically cute relative to pretty much anything else, but I’m pretty sure there are things other than phenotype involved here.
I don’t think the evidence for a pedomorphic interpretation of cuteness is quite conclusive, but there do seem to be a serious dearth of competing hypotheses, and the evidence is certainly suggestive: the combination of small body size, a rounded body and head of large size relative to limbs, big eyes, soft features, playful behavior etc. all seem like they add up to a pretty good match. It also seems to be a culturally universal phenomenon, and those are quite rare.
Alicorn’s point about cuteness giving us an unusual number of false positives relative to (say) sexiness is well taken, but I’m not sure how strong it actually is; superstimuli for sexiness that don’t match real human phenotypes are definitely out there. Sexual selection’s also under intense pressure relative to most other evolutionary cues, which might imply a need for our instincts in that area to be more accurate, although it seems (to my non-biologist self) like childrearing should be in the same ballpark.
Superstimuli for sexiness are like superstimuli for taste: take the reproductively best things in the ancestral environment, and exaggerate their characteristics outside of what was found there. For example, prominent sexual characteristics are sexy; Escher girls made mostly of breasts and buttocks are therefore sexier. Watanuki is such an example; the gangliness and androgyny are are but possible, the legs and facial structure are exaggerated but not that far from realistic equivalents.
Also, are many people sincerely attracted to Jessica Rabbit? It seems to me like she only represents sexiness, like we immediately understand a stick figure in a skirt to mean “woman”.