“Kindchenschema”: what is the phenomenon that explains infantile traits in dogs about

Tenderness is, many times, a response to the infantile characteristics that an animal presents.

In 1943, Konrad Lorenz, later a Nobel laureate in medicine, proposed the term kindchenschema or baby outline to refer to the set of traits that touch humans in our babies or those of other species or in other fictional characters: chubby cheeks, round face, large head and eyes and small nose in proportion to the rest of the body.

All this has been recognized and taken advantage of by the film and TV industry when designing characters that awaken high doses of tenderness and lasting empathy.

This appreciation of Lorenz It has a biological basis, since it is an adaptive strategy that improves the chances that our offspring will survive, by encouraging better and greater care.

This special perception of mammals, which are the ones who, through lactation, must guarantee the health of the young in the beginning of existence, not only occurs in human babies but also with cats and dogs.

Mammalian mothers tend to fix their gaze more on the eyes of the young, which gives information about the emotional state and it allows increases in the fundamental hormone of attachment and lactation: oxytocin, the so-called love hormone.

Also the levels of progesterone and estrogen influence the behavior of affection or protection towards the baby, especially in its most tender stage in life. All this can be extrapolated to our relationship with dogs or cats.

Dog puppies take advantage of the effect of their kindchenschema, with us, by being adopted, chosen and protected at the age when they are weaned and separated from their parents, which is when they show, in addition to their maximum tenderness, the highest level of mortality risk.

All animals, without exception, have brains made up of the same type of neurons and there is no reason why other species cannot be tender towards their offspring as a desirable phenomenon to ensure their proper rearing.

Millions of dogs and cats are living proof of the daily manipulation of our emotions through their appearance, and a clear witness to this are the more than 26 billion views of cat videos on the networks, the most popular and commented on when it comes to leaving us tenderness on the surface.

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