This article from the New York Times (free registration required) investigates the phenomenon of cuteness. You wouldn’t necessarily think this would be all that interesting, except that the evolutionary roots of a human preference for cuteness are mildly interesting in their own right and have grown some odd branches. The features that make up cuteness appear in very young humans (for example, round face, eyes set relatively low on the face, waddling steps), and they’re probably attractive to many of us because human infants are so helpless, and adults who responded to them with love and protectiveness were more likely to rear their young to adulthood.
The interesting thing is that we are so inclined to respond to those traits that we attribute cuteness to things that possess the traits for entirely different reasons. This article describes the physiology and anatomy behind the distinctive appearance of human babies, and why pandas and penguins look especially adorable to humans. This also describes the ways that marketers push the “cute” button to try to sell us stuff, making even cars (like the Volkswagen Beetle) cuter if they can. We humans are funny beasts, when you stop to think about it. (Of course not everyone responds the same way, and some of us get tired of cuteness after awhile, especially in things other than babies.)
