Ever felt compelled to squeeze an adorable animal really, really hard?

Sure you have . We all have – and not in a malicious sense . Squeezing is just something you want to DO . Bunnies . Puppies . Wee baby elephants . duck’s egg . Baby acedia . All wellsprings of the intense desire to bosom so knockout it hurts . Well it turn out scientists have given this compulsion a name . It ’s “ Cuteness aggression , ” and they ’re trying to make horse sense of it . With bubble wrap .

Here ’s an adorable baby elephant gallivant around at the beach

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Over at Scientific American , Carrie Arnold has the lowdown on what science has to say about the universal desire to squeeze baby animals , hard :

Whether we are hook the cheeks of an adorable toddler or enveloping a beloved darling in a bear hug , most of us have experienced the strange drive to give something cute a gigantic squeeze . New research by two Yale University psychologists details how the sight of something cunning brings out our aggressive side . Rebecca Dyer and Oriana Aragon enquire “ cute aggressiveness ” by show subject field participants swoop shows of either cute , peculiar or normal fauna photographs . As they watched , the player prevail bubble wrapping . The investigator , attempting to mime the usual desire to squeeze cute things , told topic to pop out as many or as few house of cards as they wish . People watching the cute lantern slide show popped importantly more bubbles than those viewing the funny or control pictures , allot to answer gift at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology yearly meeting in New Orleans . “ Some thing are so cunning that we just ca n’t tolerate it , ” Dyer concludes .

Read the rest over at SciAm .

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