Babies' cuteness is a powerful force to be reckoned with. It melts adult hearts, ensuring babies a steady source of food and protection until they mature to an age when they're slightly less vulnerable.
What is it about babies that makes them so cute? It's their eyes, which are huge relative to their faces (eyeballs don't grow all that much after birth); their heads, which are too big for their bodies; their cheeks; and their tiny chins that get adults to fixate on them.
Scientists say these traits activate an instinctual attention in adults. Brain scan studies have found evidence of an immediate reaction to babies in parents and non-parents alike in the orbitofrontal cortex, a region of the brain thought to be involved in rewarding and decision-making. Cute babies are just extremely hard to ignore, and this is likely hardwired into our brains.
There's some evidence to suggest that less cute children are treated differently. A review of the scientific literature in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences highlights a few conclusions that point in this direction.
The first: "Both men and women will expend extra effort to look longer at cute infant faces."
So cuter babies command more attention. Does this mean adults prefer them? "When presented with cute and less-cute infants, adults prefer to give a toy to, or even adopt, the cuter one," they write.
The problem of cuteness discrimination is more acute when the baby has a physical abnormality. Brain scans show that adults — who usually have immediate brain activity when gazing on an infant's face — will show less activity when babies have a "craniofacial abnormality that disrupts the typical cute facial composition."
In the real world, this plays out with tragic consequences. Babies with cleft lips and palates are more likely to have "adverse outcomes in child development, including cognitive problems," the paper writes. "These problems can at least partly be attributed to early disruptions in mother-child interactions, specifically a lack of all-important maternal responsiveness." The implication is that the mother is less responsive because the child is less cute.
There's some hope for babies who are less attractive than their peers. The authors of the review in Trends in Cognitive Sciences make the case that there other, nonfacial, components to cuteness: "sight, sound, or smell of infants can help facilitate caregiving and perhaps promote other sophisticated emotional behaviors," they write. (Also all parents have a bias to see the cuteness in their own children.)
What's also true is this: No baby can stay cute forever. "Both adults and children pay more attention to infants' faces than to older children's faces," the authors write, "suggesting the power of cuteness in young children's faces fades as children mature."
And however unsightly a child might be, it's unlikely that one would be so hideous as to provoke reactions like Elaine Benes and Jerry Seinfeld's here:
Adorable babies might not turn into real lookers as men and women because hormones affect facial appearance. "The proportion of androgens and estrogens in our bodies as we grow can determine our brow and jaw structure, skin clarity, and facial hair," says Harrison, the study's lead author.
Lorenz proposed the concept of baby schema (Kindchenschema), a set of facial and body features that make a creature appear "cute" and activate ("release") in others the motivation to care for it. Cuteness may be ascribed to people as well as things that are regarded as attractive or charming.
There's no need for pangs of parental guilt if you secretly feel the newest member of your family isn't as adorable as you expected. Obviously, your child's looks won't change your love for them. But if you're wondering if it's normal to feel your newborn isn't a candidate for baby modeling, the answer is yes!
Sometimes, but not always. There are a lot of beautiful babies who grow up to be unattractive adults, and vice versa. I've known a couple of very homely babies who actually grew up to be gorgeous teenagers and adults.
There was no correlation between attractiveness in infancy and (young) adulthood. Some ugly ducklings turned into swans, some baby swans become ugly ducks. Some gawky, awkward babies remained that way into their senior year of high school.
People are drawn to babies, and it's their body proportions (large head, large eyes, and small mouth, compared with the rest of the body) that may be an evolutionary trigger or a reminder that nurturing our young is an important adaptation for our long-term survival as a species.
Their soft skin and chubby limbs may even make them feel cute. Together, these aesthetic qualities act as a crucial mechanism that enables babies to attract us through all our senses. Babies need constant attention and care to survive, and cuteness is one of the main ways they get it.
Surveys suggest we don't find babies particularly cute until 3 or even 6 months of age, when the awkward old man features give way to chubby cheeks and big eyes. They then remain at peak cuteness from 6 months until around age 4-and-a-half.
Large and round eyes, a small nose and mouth, a high and protruding forehead, chubby cheeks and soft skin have all been associated with cuteness, not just in babies but puppies, kittens, dolls and Japanese anime and manga characters.
Typically, features such as larger eyes, a slender nose, pronounced cheekbones, plump lips, and overall harmonious proportions are deemed attractive. However, beauty is subjective and varies across cultures and individuals.
In many cases, babies may initially resemble one parent more than the other, but as they grow and develop, their features may change and begin to resemble the other parent more.
The shape and appearance of a baby's face – and variety of expressions – often change drastically by adulthood, making it hard to model and predict that change.
In fact, the results of a recent survey published in Evolution and Human Behavior found that we don't find babies cute until three, or even six months of age. 1 From there, babies remain at peak cuteness until around age four-and-a-half. Understandable right? That's when they're at their most chubby and dimpled.
Babies not only look cute, with their big eyes, chubby cheeks and button noses, their infectious laughs and captivating scent also make them sound and smell cute. Their soft skin and chubby limbs may even make them feel cute.
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