Korean Job Discussion Forums

[mithridates]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5P6UU6m3cqk

[Big_Bird]

.....

[jinju]

Big Bird,

please, no.

[tomato]

Hello, khyber!

Adult animals seem to think appeasement gestures on the part of juvenile animals are cute. Winn, 1983: 183) points out that baby animals manipulate adults by "laying the ears back, dropping the head, placing the tail between the legs."

It seems that Mama Bird thinks the baby birds' open beaks are cute. There was an experiment in which Mama Bird was blindfolded while the baby birds opened their beaks for food. Mama Bird ignored the baby birds, who then had to be fed by the experimenters (Winn, 1983: 183).

Freud might be wrong in thinking that the sexual instinct is the most basic instinct. I suggest that the parental instinct deserves this distinction. I say this because our courtship behavior borrows practices from behavior between parents and juveniles.

What do I mean by this? Read on.

In prehistoric times, long before the blender was invented and before baby food was sold in the supermarket, adults fed infants by chewing on food and transferring the food to the infants' mouths. The infants learned to receive food by puckering their lips. This became such an essential survival skill that it became impressed in their genes.

Eventually, the puckered lips became not only a signal for feeding but an expression of affection. Parents came to respond to puckered lips with puckered lips, even when they were not mouth-feeding (Givens, 1978).

Consequently, puckered lips appear cute because they imply an invitation to kiss (Eibl-Eibesfeldt, [1970] 1972: 137). Not surprisingly, parents all over the world express affection to children by kissing them on the lips (Eibl-Eibesfeldt, [1970] 1972: 140, 1990).

Kissing is not a uniquely human trait. Chimpanzee mothers feed mouth-to-mouth, just like prehistoric and primitive humans. Consequently, chimpanzees kiss, just as we do (Eibl-Eibesfeldt, [1970] 1972: 135-1366; Morris, 1967: 157-158), especially as a sign of submission (van Lawick-Goodall, 1968), reassurance (van Lawick-Goodall, 1968), or greeting (Darwin, 1873: 215; van Lawick-Goodall, 1968; Scheflen & Scheflen, 1972: 5).

Courting adults in other animal species borrow food-begging gestures from their infants. Other mammals do this by nuzzling (Eibl-Eibesfeldt, [1970] 1972: 113; Givens, 1978) and birds do this by opening their beaks (Eibl-Eibesfeldt, [1970] 1972: 111-113).

Adults in other animal species also borrow food-begging gestures from their infants as signs of submission. Wolves approach higher-ranking pack members with snouting gestures (Schenkel, 1967). Dogs losing dogfights surrender by snapping their teeth (Morris, 1986: 49-50).

I'm not sure I understand your message, though. Do baby deer and puppies get attacked and eaten by adult deer and dogs, or by animals of other species? My position is that cuteness in juveniles inspires nurturant behavior in adults of the SAME species.

Hello, merlot!

Smiling has an Evolutionary explanation, too. You smile at another person in order to show your sharp fangs, which your inner brain thinks you still have. You believe that you can bite the other person to death, but choose not to, and the other person can interpret this as a friendship signal (Guthrie, 1976: 36).

Oh, by the way, your avatar is a case in point. Try redrawing your avatar with smaller eyes and see if it is as cute as it is now.



Darwin, C. R. 1873. Expression of emotions in man and animals. New York: Appleton.

Eibl-Eibesfeldt, I. (Stracham, G., transl.). [1970] 1972. Love and hate: The natural history of behavior patterns. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

Givens, D. B. 1978. The nonverbal basis of attraction: Flirtation, courtship, and seduction. Psychiatry 41: 346-359.

Guthrie, R. D. 1976. Body hot spots: The anatomy of human social organs and behavior. New York: Van Nostrand.

Morris, D. 1967. The naked ape: A zoologist's study of the human animal. New York: McGraw-Hill.

_____. 1986. Dogwatching. New York: Crown Publishers.

Scheflen, A. E. & Scheflen, A. 1972. Body language and social order: Communication as behavioral control. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Schenkel, R. 1967. Submission, its features and function in the wolf and dog. American Zoologist 7: 319-329.

Van Lawick-Goodall, J. 1968. A preliminary report on expressive movements and communication in the Gombe Stream chimpanzees. In Jay, P. C., ed. Primates. New York: Holt: 313-374.

Winn, M. 1983. Children without childhood: Growing up too fast in the world of sex and drugs. Harrisonburg, VA: Donnelley.

[tomato]

And just to be sure nobody missed it,
this picture is on the latest Yahoo home page:

[beast]

Money.

[RobertX]

smell of cinnamon or vanilla

a beautiful woman smiling at me (theoretical of course, as it is yet to happen)

that 1 perfect spring day per year

laughing until i cry

[Wrench]

[PimpofKorea]

My hairy ass....