Japanese researchers had volunteers complete several tasks designed to test their focus, including playing a board game like Operation, in which they had to remove small pieces from a cramped hole with tweezers without brushing the sides of the hole. In the middle of the task, the volunteers took a break to look at pictures of cute baby animals, adult animals, or tasty-looking foods. After the break, researchers found, the volunteers who had viewed the baby animals performed markedly better than the other groups—improving their motor performance by 44 percent and their number-spotting ability by about 16 percent. The finding suggests that cute things “not only make us happier,” but also compel us to act “more deliberately and perform tasks with greater time and care,” the researchers say. That’s because we evolved to be attentive and patient in the presence of babies—qualities that also make us better workers.
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