Assessing the cuteness of children: Significant factors and gender differences

A newly developed questionnaire revealed that there are 4 factors in adults’ perception of children’s cuteness: childlike behavior, children’s imitation of adults, adults’ protective feeling toward children, and children’s physical attributes. Eighty-four childless undergraduates and 72 adults with at least 1 child watched a film of a 5-year-old boy and girl dressed either in boyish clothes or girlish, and then assessed their cuteness using the questionnaire. The results showed that participants rated equally their feeling of children’s cuteness regardless of having or not having their own children. Among the 4 factors of cuteness, childlike behavior seemed to operate most strongly.