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NancyLebovitz comments on Babies and Bunnies: A Caution About Evo-Psych - Less Wrong
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Is it not worth considering "cuteness" to be defined in terms of threat levels. It seems to me that in most cases there is a direct correlation between cuteness and perceived threat.
By threat I am referring not just to physical (claws versus soft paws, large vs small, dominant versus meek, hard versus soft) but even biological (messy / unhygenic looking creatures versus fluffy / cuddly looking ones) or social (flawed versus flawless).
This may explain why some people perceive cuteness differently. One person may look at a human baby and see no possible threat, others may be more inclined to be considering health implications or even the threat of embaressment / fear it is associated with.
With this association in mind it would seem that selection towards lower threat is prevalent - babies looking cute leads to lower abandonment or attack by other parties, animals allowed to come close to humans without fear and benefiting from shelter / food / care etc.
It can't just be harmlessness-- all sorts of things (like pencils) are harmless but not cute.
Possibly I want to limit my hypothesis to life-forms, thank you for the feedback.
There are cute inanimate objects. Tiny ones. I have adorable polyhedral dice, which I acquired by squealing over them so much that their prior owner thought I should just keep them.
Ah, finally we have a hypothesis on the benefits to humans of the general cuteness instinct!
I have acquired multiple possessions by expressing sincere admiration of them; cuteness was only a factor of said admiration in the one case.
You can kill someone with a pencil.
But the pencil can't kill someone on its own. The fear attaches to the pencil-wielder, who after all can also kill someone with their bare hands.
The cute=harmless hypothesis would predict that writing utensils of equal size that are more difficult to kill or harm with, say a brush or a crayon, are cuter. And also that soap bubbles are cuter than most other lifeless objects.
I'm sure you could contrive a way to kill someone with a bunny.
Contrived ways for bunnies to kill themselves:
http://www.jimmyr.com/blog/Bunny_Suicide_Comic_Pics_226_2007.php
Certainly. I can imagine several contrived ways how to use a bunny as a weapon, while I don't know how to kill someone with a soap bubble. Still, bunny is cuter.
Fill the soap bubble with a toxic gas.