Abstract
Even though the word "kawaii" (cute) has become more broadly defined in recent years in Japan, almost all research on cuteness has used the baby schema as a stimulus. Based on the finding that feelings of cuteness toward the baby schema improves task performance (Sherman et al., 2009), this study will investigate the effect on task performance of feelings of cuteness toward things which don't have the baby schema. Eighty-two university students were presented with cute images without a baby schema and noncute images. Before and afterwards, they were asked to carry out fine motor dexterity task and visual search task. Performing a two-way ANOVA, taking the number of successful trials as task performance, showed that performance was significantly improved after the presentation of cute images. This suggests that feelings of cuteness toward things without a baby schema may elicit approach motivation, leading to improved performance. Because feelings of cuteness with a baby schema increase discretion, we may consider the possibility that these results show a unique effect toward cute things without a baby schema.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 15-22 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| Journal | 九州大学心理学研究 |
| Issue number | 21 |
| Publication status | Published - Mar 16 2020 |
| Externally published | Yes |