Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey brain Stuff Lauren vogelbaumb here with another classic from the vault. If you're listening as this episode comes out, we are officially in spooky season, though I think spooky season lives in your heart year round. So today I wanted to revisit a fun one about the psychology behind all of those pop culture instances of monsters made adorable. Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works, Hey brain Stuff, Lauren vogelbaumb Here.
If you can think of a terrifying monster from popular culture, I can show you a version of that monster designed to be cute. From Freddy Krueger and Godzilla to Cthulhu and Pennywise the Dancing Clown. We seem determined to transform our monsters into plushies, cartoon characters, and other cuties. But why let's take a second to discuss what monsters and
cuties actually are. You can go down the rabbit hole on the cognitive origin of monsters, but essentially, a monster is an unreal creature that's awesome in size or novel in its chimerical combination of natural forms. It threatens and terrifies us even as it relates some lesson or understanding of the world around us. For instance, a werewolf combines human and lupine characteristics, but also relays a message about the dual nature of human beings. We are both beast
and something that aspires to be more. Acuteness is easier to nail down, if only because it's so rooted in conditioned responses to human infants. The features that we call cute in babies, big eyes, fat cheeks are simply the ones that hijack human attention and response. After all, the infant is the fruit of our genetic programming. We can't
help but attend to its needs. This view of cuteness falls in line with Charles Darwin's theory that natural selection favors creatures that, in infancy possess features that cause adults to protect them. Austrianithologist Conrad Laurens when on to outline these specific triggers involved, including short, thick extremities, and clumsy movements, in addition to the big eyes and chubby cheeks. To
what degree does cuteness hijack our senses? Though scientists have observed one seventh of a second response time in adults to unfamiliar infant faces, but not to adult faces. A twenty twelve Japanese study found that people who viewed images of infant animals performed tasks better than those who viewed images of adult animals. In other words, cute stimuli improve
performance in tasks that require behavioral carefulness. Were simply hardwired to become careful guardians when qutes call to us, and that bleeds over into inhuman cuties as well the kittens, puppies, and cartoon characters. Maybe those cute kitten posters in the office actually serve a purpose after all. At this point, it's easy to think of cuteness and monstrosity as separate entities, but the two states may exist upon the same spectrum
of attention grabbing stimuli. Imagine a slider mechanism them in a program or a video game. One direction takes you into the realm of disgusting terror, and the other is a one way ticket to cute town. Social scientist Maya Jejovska Brivchinska wrote a paper on this subject, Monstrous Cute
Notes on the Ambivalent nature of Cuteness. In it, she argues that the cute and the monstrous exist in a single dimension, and that there is a tipping point as to how far you can push that cute slash monstrous slider. She writes that this spectrum quote works inevitably as a sort of pendulum, swinging to and fro, and thus being able to play its role only up to a certain point where the sweetness becomes a mock and a pitiful
or ironic alter ego of itself. In other words, it's possible to push cuteness so far that it becomes sickening. If we're to push too far in the other direction, arguably the monstrous simply becomes ridiculous. Of course, in either case, individual thresholds to cute slash monster overload will vary. Monsters and cuties may stand at opposing exaggerations on the same slider of visual stimuli. But why would we move that
slider to begin with? In making our monsters cute, we diminish the underlying natural or cultural horrors that they entail. In making the cute monstrous, we also dilute its brain hijacking potency. This might also entail what psychologist Orienta Aragon calls a dimorphous expression, in which an overly positive emotion produces a negative reaction. If you've ever felt the desire to pinch an overly cute infant or kitten, then you've felt this phenomenon firsthand. When cute gets tough to handle,
a dash of horror balances it out. It would seem we create monsters for a variety of reasons, to entertain, to warn, or to chastise and thrill. We turn them cute, to dull their power, or repurpose them for commercial gain. But the slider can always run back in the opposite direction. We can only rob our monsters of their powers for so long. This episode is based on the article why do we keep turning our monsters cute? On HowStuffWorks dot Com,
written by Robert Lamb. For lots more about the science behind monsters, check out Robert's podcast Stuff to blow your mind and to hear a monster story he wrote. Listen to the podcast mini series the second oil age. You'll recognize the voice of one of the characters. Brain Stuff is production of iHeartRadio in partnership with how stuffworks dot Com.
It is produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,