Are you wondering if you are normal with your cute aggression behavior? Do you see an adorable puppy and just want to bite their ears, paws, and nose? Or when you are with your baby your mouth just waters? And you can’t stop kissing and biting their toes and cheeks? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you are just like me! And we are not alone! Cute aggression is totally a thing. It is so common, that half of all adults have a form of cute aggression.
Wait, so what the heck is cute aggression?
Cute aggression is defined as “The urge people get to squeeze or bite cute things, albeit without desire to cause harm.” There was a very long study done (yes I am serious) that proves cute aggression is super common. Basically, people can’t control themselves around cute things (like at all). We want to squeeze adorable things until they pop, and bite their cheeks off.
However, you might be surprised to know that there is a scientific answer to all of these emotions. When we look at adorable things there is a ton of brain activity going on related to emotion. The catch is our reward system triggers, and the adorable creatures are “too much to handle”. We begin using two sides of our brain to balance out our increase in emotions. This triggers cute aggression. These feelings can be a bit overwhelming, so to balance it out the brain starts producing aggressive thoughts. The idea is that these thoughts help us calm down when we see things so gosh darn cute!
Cute aggression is part of my DNA?
To take this cute aggression thing a bit further, it is so normal it’s ancestral! We are wired this way for a reason! Think about this, if we see something so adorable and we fall into a stupor, how would we be able to protect and care for our little ones? Cute aggression actually helps us “snap out of it“, so we can feed and protect our little ones in case of danger.
If you have any form of cute aggression, you are simply tapped into your parental instincts. This is a good thing, be proud!
Ok, so what does this all mean?
If you need to give your baby or puppy a big squeeze or bite those cheeks, go all out! It is making you a better caretaker! And to be honest, we can’t help it anyways. I will continue to squeeze my son and his chunky cheeks, bite his chubby little toes, and give him a million kisses.
Let me rephrase, I will continue to do all these things until he is old enough to tell me to stop! I need to get it all in while I can! Check out my letter to my son on his 1st birthday to get a sense of all my uncontrollable emotions.
Guilty!
Aren’t we all :)!