RESUMEN
Cute, kindchenschema stimuli can evoke a suite of cognitive, physiological, and behavioral tendencies thought to promote caregiving. This research investigated facial expression elements associated with this response to cuteness and assessed the recognizability of an expression combining these elements. In Studies 1 and 2, participants at a community outreach event (Study 1, n = 19) and undergraduate students (Study 2, n = 103) showed spontaneous facial displays while watching videos/photos of baby humans and animals. These were Facial Action Coding System (FACS)-coded, revealing characteristic and statistically distinctive action unit elements of facial expression responses to cuteness. In six follow-up online studies (combined N = 962), including replications with Syrian refugees (n = 103) and Chinese samples (n = 222), a "cuteness prototype" expression combining all elements identified across Studies 1 and 2 (i.e., oblique brows, chin raise, lip tightening, and Duchenne smile) was commonly interpreted as a response to cuteness. These findings add to a growing literature about caregiving-focused motivational states and associated emotion/affect.
RESUMEN
This research investigated how an instance of intergroup helping affects intergroup attitudes and cooperative behavior. Past research demonstrates that helping behavior elicits prosociality, both reciprocally and toward uninvolved third parties. However, much of this research has either ignored group membership altogether or has assumed a shared group identity between benefactor and beneficiary. Where intergroup helping has been directly evaluated, more negative intergroup attitudes are often observed. The current study examined the effects of an instance of intergroup helping, introduced during a card game, on the beneficiary's attitudes of closeness and cooperative trading behavior as well as those of ingroup and outgroup witnesses to the helping act. Results from this well-powered study (N = 1,249) indicate that although intergroup helping is less likely to impact feelings of closeness, intergroup cooperative trading increases for both the beneficiary and the intergroup observers. These findings add to the understanding of how helping impacts intergroup relations.