爲什麼我們一見萌物就hold不住

'I Wanna Eat You Up!' Why We Go Crazy for Cute

“快到碗裏來！”爲什麼我們一見萌物就hold不住

NEW ORLEANS — Ever reacted to the sight of a cute puppy or darling infant by squealing, "I want to eat you up!"? Or maybe you can't help but want to pinch your grandbaby's adorable cheeks. You're not alone. New research finds that seemingly strange aggressive responses to cuteness are actually the norm.

有沒有一看到萌犬或是可愛的北鼻就有一種景濤附身般想吼一句“快到碗裏來！”的趕腳呢？或者你也不知道爲什麼就是想戳戳你親孫子粉嘟嘟的小臉蛋呢？你不是一個人在戰鬥！最新研究發現面對萌物表面上毫無理由便飆升的攻擊值其實十分正常。

In fact, people not only verbalize these aggressive desires with phrases like, "I just want to squeeze something!" they also really do act them out. In the study, presented Friday (Jan. 18) here at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, researchers found that people watching a slideshow of adorable pictures popped more bubbles on a sheet of bubble wrap than did people viewing funny or neutral pictures.

事實上，地球人不僅願意把內心的殘暴心理用簡單粗暴的語言，比方說“我就想捏點啥！”，表達出來，還特熱衷於付諸實踐。在研究中，在週五呈現的個性與社會心理研究年會上，研究人員發現，人們在觀看萌物系ppt的時候要比觀看2B系或正常系捏破包裝紙上的泡泡數更多。

"We think it's about high positive-affect, an approach orientation and almost a sense of lost control," said study researcher Rebecca Dyer, a graduate student in psychology at Yale University. "You know, you can't stand it, you can't handle it, that kind of thing."

“我們認爲這是一種正能量的影響，一種想要接近的表示，甚至於一種失控力”，研究學者麗貝卡·黛兒（Rebecca Dyer）表示，她是耶魯大學心理專業的研究生。“你懂的，你覺得受不了，欲罷不能，就是那種趕腳。”

Too cute

好萌

Dyer got interested in what she and her colleagues call "cute aggression" after chatting with a fellow student about how adorable Internet pictures often produce the desire to squish or squeeze the cute critter. All the existing research on cuteness suggests the reaction should be the opposite, she told LiveScience. People should want to treat a cute thing with gentleness and care. [Gallery: World's Cutest Baby Wild Animals]

黛兒與一位同學閒聊人們經常想對萌萌的小東西捏捏掐掐後，對她和她同事所謂的“激萌”產生了深厚的興趣。目前所有的研究得出的都是相反的結論，她告訴趣味科學網（LiveScience）。人們正常來講應該以溫柔和愛護對待可愛的小動物的。

And indeed, Dyer said, it's not as though people really want to hurt a basketful of kittens when they see the furballs tumbling all over one another.

而事實上，黛兒表示，人們看到像毛球一樣相互滾來滾去的小貓崽兒時，也不是真想去傷害這一籃子萌物。

"We don't have a bunch of budding sociopaths in our studies that you have to worry about," she said.

“你也不用擔心我們研究會有什麼冉冉升起的暴力新猩，”她說。

But something odd seemed to be going on. So Dyer and her co-author, fellow Yale graduate student Oriana Aragon, first ran an experiment to see if cuteness aggression was a real phenomenon. They recruited 109 participants online to look at pictures of cute, funny or neutral animals. A cute animal might be a fluffy puppy, while a funny animal could be a dog with its head out a car window, jowls flapping. A neutral animal might be an older dog with a serious expression.

但奇怪的事也不是沒有。於是黛兒和她的合著者，同樣是耶魯大學研究生的奧麗埃納·阿拉貢（Oriana Aragon），就先做了個實驗看看“激萌”到底是不是筆上談兵。她們在網上找來了109個研究對象，讓他們看萌系，二系和普通系動物的照片。萌系動物可以是個毛茸茸的汪星人，二系動物可能是個把腦袋伸出車窗的小哈的隨風鼓動的下巴頦。正常系的呢可能就是有一隻嚴肅的老狗的圖片。

The participants rated the pictures on cuteness and funniness, as well as on how much they felt the pictures made them lose control — for example, if they agreed with statements such as "I can't handle it!" The participants also rated the extent to which the pictures made them "want to say something like 'grr!'" and "want to squeeze something."

研究對象按萌屬性和二屬性給圖片打分，還要形容出他們對圖片的失控程度——比方說，如果他們同意對這幅圖讓他們感到“我受不鳥啦”。同樣地，研究對象按這幅圖有多想讓你“想發出‘額嗚！’”和“想捏東西”也進行了打分。

Sure enough, the cuter the animal, the less control and more desire to "grrr" and squeeze something that people felt. Cute animals produced this feeling significantly more strongly than did funny animals. The funny critters in turn produced the feeling more strongly than did neutral animals, perhaps because the funny animals were perceived as cute, too, Dyer said.

必然的是，動物越可愛，人們就越容易失控，就越想低吟一聲“額嗚”，就越想捏點什麼。萌物比二貨動物更容易讓人產生這種感覺。而二貨動物在這方面又比普通動物略勝一籌，可能是因爲人們覺得二二的動物也挺有愛的，黛兒解釋道。

Dealing with adorable

抗萌

Still, those results could have merely identified a verbal expression for cuteness, rather than a real feeling. So Dyer and her colleagues asked 90 male and female volunteers to come into a psychology laboratory and view a slideshow of cute, funny and neutral animals.

儘管如此，這些研究結果只能證明人們對萌物有一種言語表達的傾向，而不能證明真實情感。於是黛兒和她的同事邀請了90名志願者參與一個心理實驗室，並觀看萌系動物，二貨動物，正常動物的組圖。

Researchers told the participants that this was a study of motor activity and memory, and then gave the subjects sheets of bubble wrap. The participants were instructed to pop as many or as few bubbles as they wanted, just as long as they were doing something involving motion.

研究人員告知研究對象這是一個有關肌肉活動與記憶能力的研究，然後把泡泡包裝紙發給研究對象。這些人也被告知可以按自己意願捏破任意多個泡泡，只要他們是在動就行。

In fact, the researchers really wanted to know if people would respond to cute animals with an outward display of aggression, popping more bubbles, compared with people looking at neutral or funny animals.

實際上，研究人員真正的目的是想了解，與對二貨動物和正常動物相比，人們是否會對萌物產生一種直接外向的攻擊性，也就是捏爆更多泡泡。

That's exactly what happened. The people watching a cute slideshow popped 120 bubbles, on average, compared with 80 for the funny slideshow and just a hair over 100 for the neutral one.

而事實就是這樣。看萌物組圖的人們平均捏破120個泡泡，看搞笑系的平均捏破80個，而看正常系的差不多平均捏破的泡泡數量則爲100出頭。

Dyer said she and her colleagues aren't yet sure why cuteness seems to trigger expressions of aggression, even relatively harmless ones. It's possible that seeing a wide-eyed baby or roly-poly pup triggers our drive to care for that creature, Dyer said. But since the animal is just a picture, and since even in real life we might not be able to care for the creature as much as we want, this urge may be frustrated, she said. That frustration could lead to aggression. [10 Things You Didn't Know About the Brain]

黛兒表示她和她的同事還沒搞清楚爲什麼萌屬性，甚至是相對來講無害的小東西們，會引發有暴力特徵的行爲。可能是看到一個閃爍着大眼睛的北鼻或者是圓滾滾的小汪星人會激發我們對這種生物的愛護，黛兒說道。但因爲這個動物只是一張圖片，並且在現實生活中，即使我們想，可能也沒機會照看這樣一隻萌物，於是挫敗感油然而生。這種挫敗感則可能導致強烈的攻擊性。

Alternatively, people could be trying so hard not to hurt the animal that they actually do so, much as a child wanting to care for a cat might squeeze it too tightly (and get scratched for the effort).

或者說，人們其實是在刻意控制自己不去傷害小動物以至於他們傷害了這些小動物，就好像一個孩子想輕撫小貓但未曾想抓得太緊了（有可能還爲此被貓撓了一下）。

Or the reason might not be specific to cuteness, Dyer said. Many overwhelmingly positive emotions look negative, as when Miss America sobs while receiving her crown. Such high levels of positive emotion may overwhelm people.

也有可能，原因不光在於萌屬性，黛兒說道。許多氾濫的正能量可能看起來是消極的，就像當美國小姐接受加冕時卻哽咽了一樣。人們可能會被過高的積極情緒所湮沒。

"It might be that how we deal with high positive-emotion is to sort of give it a negative pitch somehow, Dyer said. "That sort of regulates, keeps us level and releases that energy."

“可能是因爲我們處理正能量的方式使其變了味，”黛兒解釋道。“而這剛好做了下調節，讓我們保持情緒上的平衡並且釋放富餘能量。”