The Power of Backward Thinking

Our bodies shape our emotions and thoughts and language. Just consider a few common phrases: He was a forward thinker. She is way ahead of her time. We are an advanced civilization. Like locomotion, our minds seem naturally to value what lies in front of us.

Psychologists think this powerful bias may have deep evolutionary roots. Forward motion is what our ancient ancestors did when they felt safe, unthreatened. When they confronted something aversive or perilous, they would retreat. Over eons our evolving brain added layer upon layer of emotion to these deep-wired impulses to approach and avoid.

A team of Dutch psychologists took this basic idea and ran with it. If avoidance and retreat have to do with danger, they wondered, is it possible that backward motion might actually recruit more brain power than forward motion? If threats are problems to be solved, shouldn’t actual and emotional retreat require greater concentration and attention? They decided to explore this possibility in the lab.

Psychologist Severine Koch and her colleagues at Radboud University Nijmegen ran this simple experiment. They had volunteers walk just a few steps, either forward, backward, to the left or to the right. Then they immediately took the Stroop test. This is the test with the names of colors printed in different color inks; the word blue, for example, might be printed in blue—or it might be printed in red or yellow. The volunteers try very quickly to name the color of the ink rather than read the word. It’s cognitively very difficult to quash the impulse to read, so fast and accurate responses are taken as an indicator of focus and concentration.

The results, reported in the May issue of the journal Psychological Science, were intriguing. Those who had walked just a few steps backward were far more focused and attentive than were any of the others. That is, their physical retreat triggered increased mental control—presumably because of the ancient link between threat and vigilance. Confronted with a problem or difficulty, it made be advisable to take a step back and think about the situation—literally.

For more insights into the quirks of human nature, visit “We’re Only Human” at www.psychologicalscience.org/onlyhuman. Selections from the blog also appear regularly in the magazine Scientific American Mind and at www.sciam.com.

Cuteness With a Purpose

Fans of the old TV sitcom Seinfeld will recall the episode in which Jerry and Elaine visit their friend Carol and her newborn baby Adam in the Hamptons. The proud Mom wants to show Adam off, but when she ushers Jerry and Elaine into the nursery, they are dumbstruck with horror at the baby’s looks. They manage to hide their feelings and say a few polite words, but when they’re out of earshot they can’t hold back:

Jerry: “Is it me or was that the ugliest baby you have ever seen?
Elaine: “Uh, I couldn’t look. It was like a Pekinese.”
Jerry: “Boy, a little too much chlorine in that gene pool. And you know, the thing is, they’re never going to know. No one’s ever going to tell them.”

Jerry’s right. Nobody is going to tell them—or any parent for that matter—that their baby isn’t cute. That would be cruel, and parental love trumps any objective, universal standard of cuteness anyway. But cruel or not, the fact is that some babies are cuter than others. Unless it’s your own kid, most people agree that features like big eyes, a large forehead and pinchable cheeks add up to cute.

But what is cuteness for? Psychologists have speculated that cuteness might trigger emotional bonding and nurturance in parents, and there is some evidence that women have keener perceptions than men when it comes to subtle variations of cuteness. But no clear biological link has been found between cuteness and womanhood and mothering—until now.

Psychologist Reiner Sprengelmeyer of the University of St. Andrews and an international team of colleagues decided to explore the possibility that female hormones might be linked to perception of facial cuteness. They used photographs of babies that had been manipulated by computer to very subtly alter the level of cuteness, and tested the perceptions of both women and men of various ages.

Their findings were intriguing. Young women, from 19 to 26 years old, were much more sensitive to nuances of cuteness than were either young or older men. That’s interesting in itself, but it gets better: Women who were between ages 45 and 51 were just like the younger women in their sensitivity, but women 53 to 60 were just like the men. The dividing line is right around the typical time of menopause, suggesting that female reproductive hormones may play a role on cuteness perception.

The psychologists ran a second test to double-check these findings, this time comparing pre- and post-menopausal women of the same age. They also tested young women who were (or were not) taking oral contraceptives, which artificially boost female hormones. The findings confirmed the link: As reported in the journal Psychological Science, older pre-menopausal women and younger women on the pill were much more sensitive to subtle variations in babies’ cuteness.

These studies do not show how hormones shape women’s judgments of cuteness. But since all the volunteers could see equally well, it’s likely that cuteness also elicits heartwarming emotions, and that the emotional response is entangled with actual perception of cuteness. Whatever the exact mechanism, it appears that cute babies are well designed by nature to make the rewards of motherhood outweigh all the hard work.

For more insights into the quirks of human nature, visit "We're Only Human" at www.psychologicalscience.org/onlyhuman. Excerpts from the blog also appear regularly in the magazine Scientific American Mind and at http://www.sciam.com/.