Women have hormonal cues for baby cuteness

February 9th, 2009

Oh boy…this study may sound quite ridiculous to you. It certainly did to me when I read the heading. At least until my marketing sense started tingling.

I’m sure it is no surprise that many women, and I’m sure a lot of men, find the cuteness of a baby something that makes them a bit emotional in some way. Well…now we have a study that tells us that pre-menopausal women, and women on contraceptives are jsut better at figuring out which babies are cutest. Well…other people’s babies that is I would have to assume .

Between diet pill reviews young women taking hormone-boosting contraceptive pills outdid those not taking contraceptives, as well as premenopausal women in general, at detecting babies’ cuteness. Amazing…dar

Female sex hormones sensitize women to differences in babies’ cuteness, propose psychologist Reiner Sprengelmeyer of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and his colleagues. When given choices between computer-manipulated images of a baby’s face, premenopausal women discern gradations in the cuteness of the face better than either postmenopausal women or men of all ages, Sprengelmeyer’s group reports in the February Psychological Science.

“Cuteness is one of the factors that determine how strongly a mother interacts with her infant,” Sprengelmeyer says. A 1995 investigation found that mothers of babies independently rated as more attractive were particularly affectionate and playful with their children, whereas mothers of less-attractive babies provided routine care without much overt affection.

ahh…well I guess if you have a baby whose face only a mother could love you might want to think twice about taking contraceptives .