Cutiepi, also known as cutie pie or sweetie pie, is an endearing term of endearment used between children and adults to express affection or remind someone you’re thinking about them. It serves both purposes.

Viewing images of baby animals triggers an affective response associated with approach motivation and systematic processing, although its consequences on behavior remain undefined. The authors report on three experiments where viewing cute images enhanced performance in tasks that require mindfulness, such as fine motor dexterity and non-motor visual search tasks. The improvement in performance was caused by narrowing attentional focus, such that target digit detection could be made easier through reduced interference from non-target digits. This effect was only found when viewing cute images, not high pleasant or neutral food pictures; suggesting it is specific to this category of image rather than due to general feelings of pleasure.

Researchers hypothesize that gender may influence our response to cuteness cues differently, as evidenced by a study of Japanese girls’ magazine illustrations from the 1950s through to 1970s that introduced Japanese people to kawaii culture; girls tending to respond more enthusiastically than boys. They speculate cultural variations regarding infant care could account for some gender variance.