While perusing your Facebook news feed, have you ever wondered why some people's babies are adorable, while others are butt ugly? To find out why, these scientists digitally manipulated baby photos to determine what features influence baby cuteness. Turns out that round faces and high foreheads are key for cuteness, and the cuter the baby, the more willing people are to take care of it. Fortunately for those ugly babies, they are not necessarily doomed to become ugly adults.
Baby Schema in Infant Faces Induces Cuteness Perception and Motivation for Caretaking in Adults.
"Ethologist Konrad Lorenz proposed that baby schema ('Kindchenschema') is a set of infantile physical features such as the large head, round face and big eyes that is perceived as cute and motivates caretaking behavior in other individuals, with the evolutionary function of enhancing offspring survival. Previous work on this fundamental concept was restricted to schematic baby representations ...
