{"id":49718,"date":"2018-03-07T16:24:27","date_gmt":"2018-03-07T21:24:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=49718"},"modified":"2018-12-20T13:23:09","modified_gmt":"2018-12-20T18:23:09","slug":"are-newborns-ugly-brock-research-says-newborns-rated-less-cute-than-older-babies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2018\/03\/are-newborns-ugly-brock-research-says-newborns-rated-less-cute-than-older-babies\/","title":{"rendered":"Are newborns ugly? Brock research says newborns rated \u2018less cute\u2019 than older babies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Parents who aren\u2019t feeling that magical bond with their newborn babies need not panic.<\/p>\n

It turns out that adults find the faces of babies most appealing at around the six-month mark, says new research from Brock University.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to let parents know that if they\u2019re not instantly grabbed by this baby as much as they thought they might be, then that\u2019s normal. The bonding will build and grow over time,\u201d says Tony Volk, Child and Youth Studies Associate Professor.<\/p>\n

In their study, Volk, graduate student Prarthana Franklin and undergraduate student Irisa Wong showed 142 research participants photos of 18 babies taken shortly after birth, at three months old and at six months old.<\/p>\n

The researchers asked participants how willing they would be to adopt the babies based on their perceptions of the children\u2019s cuteness, happiness, health and self-resemblance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe noticed adults rated the newborns as the least attractive and the six month olds had the highest ratings across all of the facial cues,\u201d says Franklin, the lead author of the study titled \u201cAre Newborns’ Faces Less Appealing?\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThat was interesting because usually we think that the younger children are, the cuter they are and so more people prefer younger children,\u201d she says, adding that their study showed \u201ca lower limit of three months old that\u2019s the preferred age compared to newborns.\u201d<\/p>\n

Babies, whether they be human or animal, possess certain physical traits that adults consider to be \u201ccute.\u201d In human babies, these could include big eyes, chubby cheeks, broad smiles and cooing noises.<\/p>\n

In the 1940s, ethologist Konrad Lorenz<\/a> coined the term \u201ckinderschema,\u201d or \u201cchild schema,\u201d to describe these traits. He theorized that babies\u2019 cuteness brings out adults\u2019 nurturing and caretaking behaviour, which, in turn, ensures infant survival.<\/p>\n

If this is the case, newborn babies should be seen as being the cutest of all, as they\u2019re the most vulnerable and they need the most protection and care, says Volk.<\/p>\n

Initially, he and his research team were puzzled by their finding that adults\u2019 perception of cuteness intensifies six months or so after the babies are born.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wondered, why would there be this specific peak?\u201d says Volk. \u201cBut then, we read the medical literature, which was almost universal in that six month olds are better at surviving illnesses than younger babies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other studies and reports worldwide shows that most infanticide or abandonment occurs within the first few weeks of an infant\u2019s life.<\/p>\n

Volk says the delay in cuteness perception is an adult-driven adaptation that may be a leftover from evolutionary times when resources were scarce and infant diseases were deadly.<\/p>\n

\u201cHunter-gatherers who already had a child they were nursing, couldn\u2019t nurse two children at once,\u201d says Volk. \u201cIf you\u2019re a peasant mother in medieval England and you only have enough food for one child, and if having two means they\u2019re both likely to die, it\u2019s best just to have one child.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are difficult decisions that humans have made for thousands of years,\u201d says Volk. \u201cA delay in attachment makes those early losses easier to cope with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Volk identifies two other possible factors for the delay in baby-parent bonding.<\/p>\n

He says it can take up to a month for babies to develop the ability to consciously smile at someone out of happiness, which adults often find endearing.<\/p>\n

Also, research that Volk conducted a decade ago found that fathers who were actively involved with their babies tended to notice that their months-old offspring looked like them, which increased the fathers\u2019 bonding.<\/p>\n

It turns out babies may also take their time bonding. Previous research shows babies develop a preference for a specific caregiver and experience \u201cseparation anxiety\u201d when away from that person at around the seven-month mark.<\/p>\n

The Brock research team urges parents and society to come up with ways of bonding with newborns.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe firmly recognize that every newborn infant offers the tremendously appealing, unlimited potential that all humans initially possess, and we fully encourage investing in all newborns as much love and resources as is possible,\u201d says the paper.<\/p>\n

Ways to bring about earlier bonding include infant massage, spending lots of time with the baby, skin-to-skin contact and supporting new parents materially and psychologically as much as possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Parents who aren\u2019t feeling that magical bond with their newborn babies need not panic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":49719,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4052,55,1,4,5,38],"tags":[6387,45,522,6350,6386,6388,6389,3502],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49718"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49718"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49720,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49718\/revisions\/49720"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}