The construct of cuteness: A validity study for measuring content and evoked emotions on social media

Abstract

Social media users are often exposed to cute content that evokes emotional reactions and influences them to feel or behave certain ways. The cuteness phenomenon in social media has been scarcely studied despite its prevalence and potential to spread quickly and affect large audiences. The main framework for understanding cuteness and emotions related to cuteness outside of social media is baby schema (having juvenile characteristics), which triggers parental instincts. We propose that baby schema is a necessary but not sufficient component of explaining what constitutes cuteness and how people react to it in the social media context. Cute social media content may also have characteristics that evoke approach motivations (a desire to interact with an entity, generally with the expectation of having a positive experience) that can manifest behaviorally in sharing and other prosocial online behaviors. We developed and performed initial validation for measures in social media contexts of: (1) cute attributes that encompass both baby schema and other proposed cuteness characteristics (the Cuteness Attributes Taxonomy, CAT) and (2) the emotional reactions they trigger (Heartwarming Social Media, HSM). We used the Kama Muta Multiplex Scale (KAMMUS Two), as previously validated measure of kama muta (an emotion akin to tenderness; from Sanskrit, “moved by love”) as a measure of emotional reaction to cute stimuli and the dimension Cute Content of the Social Media Emotions Annotation Guide (SMEmo-Cute Content) as a developed measure of gestalt cute content to help validate our newly developed measures. Using 1,875 Polish tweets, our results confirmed that cute social media content predicted a kama muta response, but not all KAMMUS Two subscales were sensitive to cute content, and that the HSM measure was a better indicator of the presence of cute content. Further, the CAT measure is an effective means of categorizing cute attributes of social media content. These results suggest potential differences between in-person, online, and social media experiences evoking cute emotional reactions, and the need for metrics that are developed and validated for use in social media contexts.

As cute as a button: the effect of size on online product cuteness perception

“…Participants were randomly assigned to either the small or control condition according to a between-subjects design. The importance of examining cuteness in online marketing has been stressed in the areas of social media (Golonka et al (2023) and online sales (Chou et al, 2021). Therefore, participants were asked to imagine they were searching online for a coffee cup and came across an online store.…”

Emotional content and sharing on Facebook: A theory cage match

“…We developed this annotation scheme over multiple iterations, testing with Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube for reliability, clarity of instructions, and the set of emotions ( 26 ). We chose this list of emotions by reviewing the literature on emotions and emotional categories [e.g., ( 15 , 17 , 55 )] as well as psychological research that focuses on specific individual emotions [e.g., empathic pain; ( 56 ); awe/wonder; ( 57 ); and kama muta/reactions to cute content; ( 25 , 27 )]. We chose emotions that were both repeated across different category schemes (e.g., anger) and that might be particularly relevant to current social media (e.g., kama muta).…”

“…Thus, we wished to apply semantic space theory-a more comprehensive approach-to the question of emotions in social media. Adding to (and, in most cases, overlapping with) the semantic space approach, we included research from psychology that focuses on specific emotions, such as kama muta, or the heartwarming feeling that can be a reaction to cute or infantlike stimuli (24)(25)(26)(27).…”