Who doesn't seem chubby skunk and big eyes of babies adorable? Well, it is no accident, babies are like that to dazzle us and it is the result of centuries of genetic evolution to adapt to the environment.
Babies, with their characteristic appearance, are trained to instinctively awaken our affection: with that appearance they seem adorable to us, so we want to take care of them and take care of them.
In the 1940s, the ethologist Konrad Lorenz, dedicated to the study of customs (ethos) of animals and their living conditions in relation to their environment, he proposed that we instinctively want to take care of any creature that looks adorable.
We already said that John Bowlby's theory of attachment was strongly influenced by this previous author, who developed these theories by studying animals in previous decades.
But you don't have to go so far to confirm those studies. Currently, Marina Cords, professor of ecology, evolution and environmental biology at Columbia University, states:
Lorenz hinted that children's characteristics (big head, big eyes, very round face) stimulate the desire to provide care (...). Every year I study blue monkeys in Kenya and experience the same reaction. The young seem cute to me. My advisor advised me to never tell anyone that this was a reason why we do this. But it is difficult to avoid that visceral reaction.
A 2009 scientific research Directed by biologist Melanie Glocker, from the University of Münster (Germany), she has been the first to present solid evidence that human beings experience profound chemical reaction in the brain when babies look.
Specifically, they awaken a part of the middle brain called "nucleus accumbens", also known as "pleasure center" and which is the oldest part of the brain from an evolutionary point of view involved in the processing of rewards.
His experiments have largely shown that cute They cause physical addiction. Is it explained that funny baby videos attract us so much? Maybe, but what clarifies us the most is why we can spend hours spellbound looking at our babies.
Although we don't need any scientific explanation to explain why we find babies adorable and to enjoy that feeling of protection and love for them, the greatest, disinterested, exuberant and inexplicable of love.
