The cutest thing you can see on the internet these days is Baby Yoda. Almost anyone would give their life for the small delicate Yoda who we saw for the first time in the inaugural episode of The Mandalorian. Something seems to happen to us deeply inside as we see Baby Yoda. It stirs the deepest emotions and brings out in us the same feeling of love and affection we give to anything we care for. And to our surprise, there is a scientific reason why we love Baby Yoda so much.
One can be assured that almost anyone who sees little Yoda for the first time will breathe a sigh. His huge eyes, his helpless look, the tenderness that emanates from his small body, everything seems designed to trigger that feeling in us. This is explained by Katherine Stavropoulos, a neurologist at the University of California, who has studied how tenderness activates our neuronal gratification system.
Baby Yoda is designed to trigger in us the feeling of tenderness. His little nose and big eyes, his little chin, everything has a childlike look that makes us melt with emotion because they provoke a reaction that makes us want to protect it.
Children seem tender to us because “they motivate other people, and especially dad and mom, to make a great effort to take care of them while they grow up,” says Wendy Trevathan, professor emeritus at the University of New Mexico. A feeling of helplessness and dependence can cause parental reactions in us, something that is especially reinforced by the way babble and eye contact from children affect adults, says the scientist.
So yes, Baby Yoda is the cutest thing on the internet because its features are formed to trigger that feeling in us. It must be admitted that it does its job, and we cannot wait to know the effect that this tenderness will have on the Mandalorian mercenary throughout the series.
