When Too Cute Is Too Much, The Brain Can Get Aggressive

Researchers say human brains can become overwhelmed by cute traits, such as large eyes and small noses, embodied by movie characters like Bambi.

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The holiday season is all about cute. You’ve got those ads with adorable children and those movies about baby animals with big eyes.

But when people encounter too much cuteness, the result can be something scientists call “cute aggression.”

People “just have this flash of thinking: ‘I want to crush it’ or ‘I want to squeeze it until pops’ or ‘I want to punch it,’ ” says Katherine Stavropoulos, a psychologist in the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Riverside.