In The News!
SCIENCE COMMUNICATION (selected)
Science Writing
Aragón, O. R. (2017). Why do we want to squeeze cute things? Das Gehirn & Geist (Scientific American: German edition).
Aragón, O. R. (2017). The connection between emotion and crying. Scientific American Mind, Nature Publishing Group, (28)2, 74.
Aragón, O. R. (2015). Tears of Joy; Dimorphous Expressions. Das Gehirn & Geist (Scientific American: German edition).
Aragón, O. R., (2013). Why do we feel compelled to pinch the cheeks of babies? Invited commentary on Dan Dennett’s Cute, Sexy, Sweet, Funny. TED Talks.
Aragón, O. R. (2013). Why do we want to squeeze cute kittens? Science + Religion.
Notable interviews.
Swalin, R. (2021). Time Magazine. The Weird Reason Why Happy Things Can Make You Cry.
Lopez, X. (2020). NPR. Whyy, Why We Sometimes Laugh During Inappropriate Times.
Webster, M. (2019). NPR. Radio Lab. Asking for Another Friend. Discussion about cuteness.
Kennedy, P. (2019). The New York Times. Opinion, Sunday. Why You Want to Eat This Baby Up: It’s Science.
Hamilton, J. (2018). NPR. When Too Cute is Too Much, the Brain Can Get Aggressive.
Mull, A. (2018). The Atlantic. This is Your Brain on Puppies.
Love, S. (2018). Vice. ‘Cute Aggression’ Is the Desire to Crush Adorable Things.
Orton, D. (2018). Newsweek, London Newsweek Television Show. Science episode centered on dimorphous expressions of emotion.
Weiss, S. (2018). New Yorker Magazine. The Cut, Science of Us. A Psychological Explanation for Why Compliments Are So Embarrassing.
Sedacca, M. (2017). The Atlantic. Science. The Politically Subversive Power of Puppies.
Wilson, H. (2015). BBC. Secret Life of Dogs. Episode in which they replicated our “bubble wrap” study from Aragon et al, 2015.
Morris, B. (2015). The New York Times. Style. In Praise of the Cute Animal.
Longest, T. (2014). Discovery News. Why Do We Cry When We Are Happy?
Giambrone, A. (2014). The Atlantic. Health. The Science of Laughing Through Tears.
Holmes, T. (2014). ABC News, Good Morning America. Tears of Joy, The Science Behind Odd Emotional Reactions.
Draxler, B. (2013). Discover Magazine, Psychology. Why You Want to Squeeze Cute Things.
Arnold, C. (2013). Scientific American, Mind. Cuteness Inspires Aggression.
In the News 2015:
There are new discoveries being made on this topic. Stay tuned... In the meantime, here are a few selected pieces on the topic.
Scientific American Mind, “Why do we cry when we are happy?” by M. Wenner Moyer, 2015
Dogs: Their Secret Lives, Channel 4, UK, June 2015.
In the News 2014:
The forthcoming paper Dimorphous Expressions of Positive Emotion: Displays of Both Care and Aggression in Response to Cute Stimuli is a follow up of my work that was presented by a colleague on behalf of our research team in 2012, and captured much attention. Then, I had hypothesized that these dimorphous expressions may play a role in emotion regulation. This idea, is consistent with what was found in recent experiments. What we can say from what we found is that (a) these responses seem to take place when individuals report themselves that they feel overwhelmed, (b) these responses are related within person, meaning if an individual cries at happy moments they are also more likely to also scream when elated, (c) responses to overwhelmingly negative emotions may work in similar ways (e.g., nervous laughter) and (d) early evidence shows that these expression may help the overwhelmed individual to return to a non-overwhelmed state. There are many questions that follow this primary work and I look forward to reporting back more later.
Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/diet-and-fitness/yale-psychologist-oriana-aragon-finds-out-why-we-cry-when-we-are-happy-20141113-11m3y2.html
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2014/11/13/why-do-people-cry-tears-of-joy-and-pinch-babies-cheeks-according-to-science-it-may-help-you-calm-down/
Wray Herbert, Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wray-herbert/nervous-laughter-tears-of_b_6115994.html
The Atlantic
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/11/the-science-of-laughing-through-the-tears/382824/
In the News 2012:
Responses to Cute Stimuli. Much press has characterized our work as depicting responses as aggressive towards cute things, but we do have a different view that what has been depicted at times. I originally got the idea to investigate these extreme responses after watching a woman on a talk show (Conan O'Brien), exclaim how someone who she admired was so wonderful that she just wanted to squeeze her. I began to think about this response. After speaking with my father casually about it, he mentioned how people also squeeze cheeks when they think the target is really cute. To me, it seemed at face value- a contrary response to cute stimuli. I realize that it is socially acceptable- but if you look beyond social norms- you have to admit that it is a bit odd to squeeze or pinch someone/something just because it is cute.
In psychology, figuring out how people regulate their emotions is considered an important topic for many reasons. It seems that there could be an unexplored mechanism in these responses to very high positive-approach emotions. If people do spontaneously react to super cute stimuli with these gestures of playful pinching/squeezing/saying Grrrr!, then maybe this serves a purpose in regulating the seemingly overwhelmed feeling that people appear to have when exposed to very cute things.
I wanted to investigate this a bit further. But it was necessary to see if the example of Grandma pinching cheeks, is just an anecdote that is more folklore than reality. We absolutely could not study WHY people have these responses to cute stimuli, without first seeing IF people have these responses to cute stimuli. Therefore this first set of studies is simply what we call descriptive research. We were trying to put data to the hypothesis that people will want to squeeze/pinch and say Grrr! when they see cute things. We did this by directly asking people if they wanted to squeeze-or say Grrr! while viewing cute stimuli, and found support for our hypothesis. But self-reports can be at times biased in one way or another- so we went at the question again with a behavioral study. I tried to think of various ways that we could capture a squeezing or pinching behavior while people were viewing cute stimuli. The only thing that came to mind was bubble wrap. That way people could pinch the bubbles and after they finished the experiment there would be a way of knowing how much they pinched. The hypothesis was, if individuals have a tendency to pinch or squeeze when they see cute things, and we give them something to pinch and squeeze while viewing cute things, it should show up in the results. Again we did find support for out hypothesis.
There is, in my opinion some merit in exploring these responses. If in time we do indeed find that people are able to regulate high-positive affect through these playful gestures- then these ideas might be helpful in applied research where clinicians work hard to help those who have difficulty in regulating their emotions and behavioral responses.
Respectfully,
Oriana
oriana.aragon@yale.edu