Increasing Happiness And Taking Care
While the study of cute animal videos and their effect on us may seem frivolous, Myrick thinks it’s significant, especially with the advent of an age where many people are almost constantly connected to the internet.
Indeed, she’s not the first person to look into the effects that cuteness can have on our psyches – and our behavior.
One 2012 study based out of Hiroshima, Japan sought to analyze “the power of kawaii”, or cuteness, over our functioning in basic tasks. What they found was that students performed better on tasks involving fine motor dexterity after viewing cute images of puppies and kittens(5).
Interestingly, the students who viewed pictures of puppies and kittens performed better than the students who viewed pictures of fully-grown dogs and cats. The students who viewed the cuter images took more care in the performance of their tasks, causing the researchers to conclude that “cute objects may be used as an emotion elicitor to induce careful behavioral tendencies in specific situations, such as driving and office work.”
A similar study performed in 2009 drew almost the exact same conclusion, hypothesizing that “the human sensitivity to those possessing cute features may be an adaptation that facilitates caring for delicate human young.”(6)
Whether the reason is emotional or evolutionary, or some mix of both, it’s clear that you don’t need to feel as guilty about indulging in cat videos as you think.
