Why Babies are Cute?

We are inherently attracted to a specific set of characteristics including large, symmetrical heads, large eyes, small mouths and small noses. But why do almost all humans find this particular set of features so appealing?

According to Kurland answer lies in evolution. According to Darwin, individuals of a given species will show a new trait if that trait provides a survival advantage, improving an organism's chances of living to see sexual maturity and successfully reproduce. But what does evolutionary form have to do with being cute? One of two basic methods may be at work, Kurland suggested. In the first, a distant female ancestor was born with a minor different makeup than her forebears, perhaps the result of some random genetic mutation. This change in her genes caused her to prefer babies with the facets we see as cute. She passed on this preference to future generations, and thereafter baby with "cuteness" attracted more attention and received more care than their less-cute compatriots. The cuties therefore were more likely to survive and reproduce, and their offspring inherited both their "cuteness" trait and their first choice for cuteness. "Because the two traits became linked in this way, they both increased in the population," said Kurland.

The second possibility is similar to the first, except that here cuteness runs more than skin deep. In this situation, too, Kurland explained, a fore-mother was born with an arbitrary preference for "cute" babies to her they just look better. And again, she gives more attention and care to her "cute" babies, who survive in greater numbers to pass on both their own cuteness genes and the genes for her predilection, and this genetic mixture gradually increases in the population. In this case, however, the babies do not merely look better .they are better, from an evolutionary standpoint. According to Kurland, infants who displayed cute features actually may have been healthier, and adults are more sexually attractive. They would have been more likely to survive and reproduce. In this case, cuteness is an indicator of good genes. Again, the mother's preference trait and the infant's cuteness trait strengthen each other. Over many generations, mothers keep selecting cuter, and in turn strengthening their preferences. In both cases, Kurland stressed, cuteness and the preference for cuteness are passed on not just through female offspring, but through males as well. Fathers, uncles and big brothers as well as aunts and grandmas and family friends also will prefer infants who are as cute as they themselves were. The two traits spread through the entire population.