Research Report
The Cutest Little Baby Face
A Hormonal Link to Sensitivity to Cuteness in Infant Faces
R. Sprengelmeyer,
1
D.I. Perrett,
1
E.C. Fagan,
1
R.E. Cornwell,
1
J.S. Lobmaier,
1
A. Sprengelmeyer,
2
H.B.M. Aasheim,
1
I.M. Black,
1
L.M. Cameron,
1
S. Crow,
1
N. Milne,
1
E.C. Rhodes,
1
and A.W. Young
3
1
University of St. Andrews,
2
Universita¨t Bielefeld, and
3
University of York
ABSTRACT—We used computer image manipulation to de-
velop a test of perception of subtle gradations in cuteness
between infant faces. We found that young women (19–26
years old) were more sensitive to differences in infant
cuteness than were men (19–26 and 53–60 years old).
Women aged 45 to 51 years performed at the level of
the young women, whereas cuteness sensitivity in women
aged 53 to 60 years was not different from that of
men (19–26 and 53–60 years old). Because average age at
menopause is 51 years in Britain, these findings suggest the
possible involvement of reproductive hormones in cuteness
sensitivity. Therefore, we compared cuteness discrimina-
tion in pre- and postmenopausal women matched for age
and in women taking and not taking oral contraceptives
(progestogen and estrogen). Premenopausal women and
young women taking oral contraceptives (which raise
hormone levels artificially) were more sensitive to varia-
tions of cuteness than their respective comparison groups.
We suggest that cuteness sensitivity is modulated by female
reproductive hormones.
More than half a century ago, Konrad Lorenz proposed the
Kindchenschema as an innate releasing mechanism for care-
taking behavior and affective orientation toward infants, trig-
gered by features such as protruding cheeks, a large forehead,
and large eyes below the horizontal midline of the skull (Lorenz,
1943). Baby faces having these features are commonly de-
scribed as cute, and although cuteness has been shown to
modulate mother-infant interaction (Langlois, Ritter, Casey, &
Sawin, 1995), there are only a few psychophysical studies in-
vestigating responses of men and women to variations of phys-
ical properties of baby faces (Alley, 1981; Brooks & Hochberg,
1960; Gardner & Wallach, 1965; Hu¨ckstedt, 1965; Sternglanz,
Gray, & Murakami, 1977). Overall, findings from these studies
are not conclusive but suggest a possible difference between
men and women in perceiving cuteness. However, a question not
addressed in previous studies concerns what might underlie any
sex differences in adults’ ability to perceive infant cuteness.
An obvious cause might be differential interest in babies, but
there are other explanations. Given that Lorenz had conceived
the Kindchenschema as a biological mechanism, we decided
to investigate the possibility of a link to female reproductive
hormones.
STUDY 1
Study 1 aimed to explore the idea of a possible link between
cuteness perception and female reproductive hormones by
looking at groups of younger women, younger and older men, and
women aged slightly below and above the average age at
menopause in Britain.
Method
Participants
Twenty-four younger women (mean age 5 22.0 years, SD 5 1.8
years, range 5 19–26 years), 24 younger men (mean age 5 21.5
years, SD 5 1.5 years, range 5 19–26 years), and 24 older
women (mean age 5 53.2 years, SD 5 4.1 years, range 5 45–60
years) were investigated. Bearing in mind that reproductive
hormones might possibly modulate sensitivity to infant facial
cuteness, we used the older women’s median age of 52 years
(which is near the average age at menopause in Britain) to
subdivide the latter group into a group of women aged 51 years
and younger (mean age 5 49.8 years, SD 5 2.1 years, range 5
45–51 years), and a group of women aged 53 years and older
(mean age 5 56.6 years, SD 5 2.5 years, range 5 53–60 years).
No participant was taking hormone-replacement therapy or had
undergone hysterectomy. At a later stage of the study, a group of
11 older men (mean age 5 56.5 years, SD 5 2.3 years, range 5
53–60 years) was added to provide a point of comparison to
the women aged 53 through 60 and to the younger men.
Address correspondence to R. Sprengelmeyer, School of Psychology,
University of St. Andrews, St. Andrews KY16 9JU, Scotland, e-mail:
rhs3@st-and.ac.uk.
PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE
Volume 20—Number 2 149Copyrightr 2009 Association for Psychological Science

The 48 younger participants reported not having children,
whereas all 35 older participants had children.
Cuteness Discrimination
Facial images of 130 female and 72 male Caucasian European
babies were collected. From these sets, we choose 28 pictures of
female and 30 pictures of male faces considered to be of a
sufficient quality for further computer processing. The female
baby faces were rated for cuteness on a 7-point scale (1 5 not
cute,75 very cute) by 10 younger women (mean age 5 22.9
years, SD 5 3.6 years, range 5 20–30 years), 10 younger men
(mean age 5 24.2 years, SD 5 4.1 years, range 5 20–29 years),
and 10 older women (54.1 years, SD 5 4.1 years, range 5 45–59
years). The male baby faces were rated in the same way by
groups of 10 younger women (22.8 years, SD 5 3.3 years, range
5 20–29 years), 10 younger men (23.2 years, SD 5 3.7 years,
range 5 19–29 years), and 10 older women (54.0 years, SD 5
4.4 years, range 5 45–59 years). Ratings for female faces
correlated significantly between groups, Spearman’s r  .76,
Cronbach’s a  .82. Similar results were obtained for the male
faces, Spearman’s r  .73, Cronbach’s a  .82. This finding
indicates that all participants had similar opinions concerning
what they considered cute and less cute baby faces.
On the basis of these ratings, we compiled four sets of pic-
tures: 10 female infant faces rated as cute (mean rating 5 4.4,
SD 5 0.8), 10 female infant faces rated as less cute (mean
rating 5 3.3, SD 5 0.6), 10 male infant faces rated as cute (mean
rating 5 4.8, SD 5 0.8), and 10 male infant faces rated as less
cute (mean rating 5 3.2, SD 5 0.7).
We took the pictures from these four sets and defined the
shape of each face with 174 manually marked facial landmark
points using the computer program Psychomorph (Burt &
Perrett, 1995). The average face shapes (Fig. 1) were then cal-
culated for each set. Next, we randomly chose five different faces
of female babies from the set of 28 pictures, and five different
faces of male babies from the set of 30 pictures. The average
ab
cd
e
+50% +25% 0% –25% –50%
Fig. 1. Creation of the experimental stimuli. First, four sets of baby faces were used to obtain av-
eraged cute male (a) and female (c) baby faces and averaged less cute male (b) and female (d) baby
faces. Next, these averages were used to apply the cuteness continuum to an individual baby’s face, as
illustrated in (e). The cuteness continuum ranged from 150% (image altered to make the face more
cute) to 50% (image altered to make the face less cute). The baby shown in (e) is 6 months old, and
transformations were performed using the shape information from the faces shown in (a) and (b).
150 Volume 20—Number 2
Cuteness in Baby Faces