Join us as we dive into the fascinating and bizarre phenomenon of 'cute aggression,' where cross-culturally, people show affection towards infants in unexpected ways, like biting and tossing them. We discuss the scientific research behind these behaviors, their evolutionary origins, and cultural differences. We'll also challenge some popular scientific explanations and propose new perspectives on why these instincts might exist. Don't miss this intriguing conversation full of surprising insights and engaging anecdotes!

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. I'm excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to be talking about the bizarre phenomenon of people cross-culturally it appears. Bite infants as a sign of affection. And another thing that people often do with young children as a sign of affection is toss them in the air.

These are, these are both things that I have personally witnessed. And I think even with like, biting gently an infant's hand, it's an instinctual saying for me at least, like my infant instinctually puts their hand towards my mouth oh, and they

Simone Collins: laugh and are just so delighted if you pretend to bite their hands or even bite them softly.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah,

Simone Collins: so weird.

Malcolm Collins: And so I'm, I, I was like, first I was like, is this just like a weird thing from maybe my family or my genetic line? So I go to look up if this is because I also have seen people in my family toss toddlers. And I also wanna see is this, is this something other people do to other people?

Because that seems like the opposite of what you would want to do as a toddler. If your goal was to keep something who is genetically close to you alive is toss it in the [00:01:00] air.

Malcolm Collins: And I go up and I look into it and there's a bunch of conservatives who I guess have never had kids or been around kids a lot, or maybe they're from cultures that just don't do this for freaking out over Joe Biden, like biting infant's feet.

So apparently this is so common. Even Joe Biden did this. Now I would say that they are right. You don't do that to other people's babies. I would never think to bite a stranger's baby or throw a

Simone Collins: stranger's baby. Yeah, 100%. That

Malcolm Collins: feels like really over the line. Yeah. It's

Simone Collins: like it's, it's an intimate act, even if it's just playful and silly.

Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: in the same way, I wouldn't toss a stranger's baby. You don't, you don't you don't do that. Yeah. Ly we'll go over some cultures where they do do that. They're the ceremony in India where they'll throw babies off of a roof. Wait, what? Into like a, a, a ball pit? No, no, no, no, no. They like hold the sheet like tau to make like a trampoline that they can, like, catch it in.

Oh. [00:02:00] And they'll throw it off the roof

Speaker: It's an annual tradition in India where babies are tossed from a rooftop. The practice known as Oakley involves priests tossing babies off the roof of a temple onto a sheet held by the people below.

Malcolm Collins: For prosperity apparently. So, for prosperity. Well,

Simone Collins: I mean at this point, you know, if only the really fittest survive, but,

Malcolm Collins: but he did mention that toddler tossing is a uniquely like the way that I have seen it practice, it's a uniquely u European and, and white phenomenon.

They do it more than other groups. There aren't a lot of other groups that don't do like the five foot in the air toddler toss which I've definitely seen.

Speaker 4: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: So we're gonna go over the scientific research that exists on this. And just, you know, like how common this is. I found an article here I can share.

In Motherly it's science. Wanting to eat your baby makes you a better parent. [00:03:00] No. What? Okay. Well, no. Think about it. You hear this all the time, like, I just want to eat 'em up or something like that. Yeah, totally. It's a common. Common. And you don't just see this with, with biting and tossing a form of this that is not common within my culture.

I've literally never seen anyone in my family unit do this, but I've seen people do it on shows is pinching infants. The cheeks.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So we're gonna go into why I think people actually do this, what the scientists say about this, which I think that they're wrong about it. And what's going on here?

All right. So the science this behavior is linked to a psychological phenomenon known as cute aggression, also called playful aggression or dimorphic dimorphic expression. I'm sorry. Wait.

Simone Collins: Cute. Aggression is a scientific term.

Malcolm Collins: Yes, we're, this world is beautiful. Positive emotions towards something adorable, such as a baby trigger.

Seemingly aggressive, but affectionate impulses like wanting to squeeze, pinch, or bite. It serves as an emotion regulation [00:04:00] mechanism, helping individuals cope with intense feelings of adoration to enable better caregiving.

Simone Collins: Do you think. A playful butt slap or the punch on the shoulder. Is that cute aggression too, or is that No,

Malcolm Collins: I, I, I think a scientist aggression who believes in this theory may argue that Uhhuh but I'm gonna argue that cute aggression doesn't exist at all.

And that this is something totally different. But I'm going into science. Okay. Okay. Because I think the scientists are just wrong on this one. They, they noticed a collection of behaviors where you toss a baby or lightly bite a baby or pinch a baby's cheeks that all appear aggressive. And they mistook these behaviors is all being caused by the same impulse.

When I actually think that they are each caused by a different and unique impulse that better explains them than what the scientists say. So scientific basis and prevalence research since 2015 led by psychologists like Ora Argon has shown that acute aggression is experienced by about half of adults when viewing or interacting with acute stimuli, including infants.

Brain imaging studies [00:05:00] EEG using EEG and FMRI revealed heightened activity and rewarded emotional centers like the orbital frontal cortex when people encounter cuteness leading to these paradoxical urges. For instance, one study found participants reported stronger aggressive expressions. EGI wanna bite it.

Exclamation mark. Towards more infantile looking babies compared to less cute ones mediated by feelings of being emotionally overwhelmed. It's not driven by harmful intent or neuro hormones but by neuro hormones like oxytocin, promoting affection in vasopressin linked to protective aggression, which evolves to enhance bonding or protection of vulnerable offspring.

So I, I note there that the only evidence that they have of this is you get what they consider an aggressive sentiment. I wanna bite it when the thing is more cute, but I'm gonna argue that there's something else that could lead to that.

Speaker 3: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: It is so cute. I could crush it. Exclamation part. That's the name of a study.

Understanding neural mechanisms of acute Aggression, [00:06:00] Catherine Km Stefopolis and Laura a Alba, 2018 using EEG to measure brain activity. This study found that cute aggression correlates with heightened neural responses in emotional salience. Larger in 200 amplitude for keter stimuli and reward processing.

Re Pew Amplitude. The relationship was mediated by feelings of being overwhelmed and a desire for caretaking. The explanation posits cute aggression as a bottom out neural mechanism to balance intense positive emotions evoked by quote unquote baby schema features EG, large eyes and around faces, ex exceeding beyond humans.

To animals. It prevents emotional paralysis, enhancing adaptive behaviors like nurturing. Strongly disagree with this. I think that it is actually a nurturing behavior and there is a reason for it, and I do not agree that what they find, IE this correlation with the N 200 amplitude couldn't be used to argue that.

Also, as a side note here the neural mechanism that they're displaying here that we have in relation to baby [00:07:00] faces you know, larger eyes sort of cute. Looking face that it's, it's humorously triggered by killer whales. Which is one of the reasons why when you look why we like them so much,

Simone Collins: even though they're freaking terrifying and horrible, they're

Malcolm Collins: horrifying.

They like to like play whiz and torture things before killing them and everything like that. Toss them in the air. You see, they're like tossing seals

Speaker 6: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Yes.

Malcolm Collins: really some of the most aggressive and brutal killers in the animal world. And yet our brain often categorizes them as like. Cutie matatu because they've got those giant ice spots that make it look like they have big, cute anime eyes.

Right. You know, so, so I, I've always found that to be a really funny way that like we're accidentally hacked by nature. So let's look at cross-cultural examples of this. In the Philippines, it's called a gigle, describing the urge to pinch or bite something cute like a baby's chubby cheeks as an expression of endearment studied in the United States and South Korea shows similar patterns [00:08:00] with no significant gender differences.

Though cultural norms may influence how openly it's expressed. Eeg, more verbal in the us, settler in East Asia. In some tie, Japanese and Hindu influence groups, gently nibbling or pretending biting is noted as affectionate. Play with infants, broader anthropological observations that suggest us akin to social biting and primates testing bonds without harm.

So note, this is something Bri primates will do is gently biting each other to like see of their friends. We'll get back to this in just a second because I think that this is a much better explanation. So, in then, then I asked it about baby tossing. 'cause I wanna, I want to know, do, do other cultures toss babies?

And they're like, and non-Western cultures similar. Playful physical play exists, but there are even ritualistic forms of baby tossing for symbolic purposes, such as in parts of India where babies are dropped from temple roofs. Caught safely in sheet to invoke good luck, health and prosperity. This 700 year old tradition occurs in places like Sola Par Masuta practiced by both [00:09:00] Hindu and Muslim families.

However, this Indian practice is a communal ritual rather than everyday parental play and playful tossing as in gentle repeated throws and catches is less emphasized in collectivist societies. India, Taiwan, and Thailand, where RTP is overall reported at lower frequencies. This is called rough and double play compared to individual dualistic western societies.

In a hunter gatherer groups such as the AKA BofI forger in Central Africa. Father, infant physical play is common. And includes things like holding, bouncing, or wrestling but not high tosses. So, and this behavior is done pretty much exclusively by males. First of all, rough and double play is, is three to six times more common in males than females.

That is play that could potentially hurt an infant. Mm-hmm. And is really predominant in Western societies. And if I could break it down, which I'd really love to be able to break it down, it may just come from one cultural group. Like it could come from just the backwards tradition. It could come from just the Puritan tradition, the two that I'm descended from.

So in the comments, if you are from a different. Western country or a non-Western [00:10:00] country. Let me know if your family throws infants. Keep in mind the, the age of the children that are thrown are typically older than infants. Do, did you see this in your family, by the way? Throwing infants like toddlers, typically around two or three to like four or five.

Simone Collins: I I mean, I didn't have peers that were younger than me, so I, I wouldn't have seen it.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I saw that. Family gatherings mostly. I, I know you don't see this in, in, in, in public if you don't have like a large family because it's something you typically only do in an affectionate context. And it'd be seen as, I don't know, kind of vulgar to do, like in a subway station or something, right?

Oh, yeah.

Simone Collins: No one would. No, of course not.

Malcolm Collins: You do it when you're all out back at a barbecue or something, right? Like that's, that's where this behavior is undertaken if your family doesn't engage in it.

Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: All right. So explanations for the various behavior on display here. First we need to talk about, showing vulnerability as a sign of affection. 'cause this is something that [00:11:00] actually adults do as well. It is why women, when they are attracted to a man will expose their neck to him. And it's why one of the most common reasons to be kissed is on the neck. Because it demonstrates sort of like a.

If you wanted to, you could kill me or seriously injure me.

Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And that signaling from both parties from an evolutionary perspective is like a very it's, it's, it's the woman showing their. Willingness to put themselves at risk of the, of the man. Like, this is how much I trust you, which is important to signal from a societal bonding perspective.

And it's the man signaling, and I would not take advantage of this opportunity too. Kill and eat you, I guess. Well, no, I mean, you know, in a historic context, that's a, that's a real potential risk when you're talking about like early evolutionary ancestors when this behavior was evol evolving.

And that is likely why monkeys do it as well to be like, look, I could hurt you if I want to, but now you know that even in [00:12:00] an environment where I could hurt you, I won't hurt you. And it's a way of, of, of establishing trust at a very deep level. This is also where a number of rituals come from that are designed to establish trust.

Oh. So the, the, the key ones here, like trust falls. Well, no kneeling and bowing your head is meant to show that you would be willing to have them chop your head off. Like if they have a sword, they could cut your head off. Like you're basically getting into a position like. See, cut my head off if you want to.

Right. And how you

Simone Collins: said that prayer, like prayer hands. Yeah. Praying

Malcolm Collins: in this as well. So the, the way that you used to show vassalage is you would bind your fingers like this. I dunno if anyone's ever done this in like a children's game. But they're the children game. But one person binds their fingers like this and another person will put their hands over the person who's done this, and you just.

Cannot get out of this. Even if the person is significantly weaker than you it's very, very difficult to break. And this was done during vassalage ceremonies to show one person's beneath the person who they're pledging to cer like, I, you can control me, right? [00:13:00] Like, in this moment you could control and do whatever you want to me.

And that when we developed ways of. To God saying like, I am your vassal. You are my Lord. The ceremony used the bowing of the head and the hands together symbols were two different symbols used in vassalage ceremonies. Which is, I, I mean there's nothing perverse about that, that that's. I, I suppose, fairly befitting.

That's that's what the person is saying. And if you're in a medieval context, obviously that's what you're gonna have around you. How do I show someone more powerful than me? That they are more powerful? Well, there's these ceremonies. Now, they may now not have understood why those ceremonies had the things that they had was in them.

This is why hand up like this is a sign of peace across many different cultures because it's a way of showing that you don't have weapons in your hands. Hmm. Now these don't seem to trigger as much of a evolved response as the showing the neck response does, but I think that that's part of what we see going on here is the parents sort of hijacking.[00:14:00]

And after all, somebody can be like, well, why would an infant because our infants will put their hands out, like without understanding our culture, without any cultural backing, will put their hands towards our mouths if we're interacting with them. And this has happened with multiple infants we've had.

And the question could be, well, why would an infant put itself in a dangerous situation like that, right? Mm-hmm. I. And the answer is a few fold. The first is, and, and another thing you'll note with infants is when they're doing the baby toss game I have never seen an infant distressed by this game.

Typically, they think it is like the best thing in the world when they're being tossed

Simone Collins: 100% laughing, crazy. They're

Malcolm Collins: laughing like maniacs. It's the same with the, the, the. Thing, like if you actually like take the, the child's hand and gently bite it the kid will just de delight and start laughing a ton.

So you've gotta keep in mind what's going on with the child here. If the child cannot trust a parent to not kill it. It's as good as [00:15:00] dead. So it's actually not really making a, a calculated risk in either instance. It has to be like, if my parent is interacting with me in a way that's dangerous, they are showing me affection in a, in a way that's like controlled, dangerous, and not likely to actively, immediately hurt me.

So they, they take it. It was in an evolved context as a sign of affection. But you have the secondary thing here, which is children when they are in the first, you know, year of development or really two years of development, are overly focused on the parent's mouth because it's, when they're learning to talk.

And so, they have a, a huge fixation with mouths and paying extra attention to mouths and wanting to touch or be close to mouths. And so I think that that's the secondary thing that's going on here is children just have a natural, like if there's a part of my faith they want to interact with, it's the mouth, right?

Yeah. So that's why you would have this interaction between babies and caregivers. Now, what's [00:16:00] interesting is most interactions that you have between babies and caregivers were later picked up by our sort of romance system when humans began to find para bonded partners later in their evolution.

So if you look at our writing on, on this. We argue that a lot of the behavior, whether it is laughing whether it is love or, or like the broader emotional like affection and attachment that we associate was the word love that we argued doesn't exist as like a separate concept. That a lot of this stuff originally evolved only for parent child interactions.

And then it was later adopted by sort of stolen where we are with like you evolution's a cheap programmer. When. We started creating long-term monogamous para bonds with other partners as a primary form of relationship in human societies. Hmm. And because that helps facilitate that because before that, the only long-term relationship you would've definitely had is with your kids.

And now you've got this new long-term relationship is like, let's just borrow, you know. Oh. You originally evolved kissing for children, but then it gets borrowed in a romantic [00:17:00] context for partners. You know, you initially, and you see this was most affectionate displays, if it's done with a kid, is, is, is done with an adult.

Why hugging, for example, was kids. You do this with romantic partners. Huh. So the question is, is, okay, well nobody,

Simone Collins: I don't even know how universal kissing and hugging is among romantic partners. It's not that universal is it?

Malcolm Collins: They're fairly universal.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: I can check in posts,

Okay, checked in post approximately 46% of cultures practice romantic kissing as a form of affection. Hugging by contrast is near universal human behavior across cultures with rare exceptions, the BU people of nambia, while the frequency and social context of hugging varies, such as being more common in high contact cultures, like those in Latin American and the Mediterranean.

And less frequently in low tech cultures like Japan or the uk, hugging is a dentist of affection, greeting, or comfort is present in virtually all human societies.

Simone Collins: yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Not totally universal, but just very frequent.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: So, as an adult first I would note [00:18:00] actually, because they're like, well then why isn't this a romantic display in adults, like all these others? And the answer is, it's, it may have been in fairly recent history. We know from fairly recent history, a man kissing a woman on the hand was seen as a sort of progenitor.

To anything more in a relationship. You know, it, it goes handholding, kissing on the hand. This is if you read romance mango, which I do. This is something that happens frequently in these sorts of stories. It was common in sort of a medieval context. So we do know that some societies did adopt, like a proto version of this.

Secondly, why would it be less common than the other signs of affection? I'd argue because it's more likely to transmit dangerous diseases. In an infant, I can be fairly certain that I have made a strong effort to have its hands, not touch anything that are going to get me sick. In your average working adult now, where you didn't see this was in Nobles during the medieval period because they would've been the one class that like didn't have to do manual labor, that [00:19:00] hands were less likely to have a lot of germs on them.

And that women often wear gloves, so you could have had this ceremony. But then as society began to, you know, become more working and, and, and social customs began to drift up from the working classes to the upper classes this, you know, you don't wanna be working at a factory all day or in a farm and then kiss someone's hand that's, that's, that's going to be worse than kissing their lips.

Interesting. Obviously kissing lips can also transfer diseases. Yeah. I'm surprised that it has become as common, but it's, it is only likely to transfer diseases that you already have and are suffering from. Not random things you picked up in your environment, like licking a doorknob or something. Or, or biting a hand more broadly.

Like even if you're not kissing lightly, biting a hand. Although I think even in a romantic context, if you did that to an adult partner, like gently bit their hand I think it would be immediately interpreted as romantic. Like I, I don't think anyone would be confused about what's intended by that.

So it's an

Simone Collins: intimate thing to do. [00:20:00]

Malcolm Collins: It's an intimate thing to do. If you do that with somebody who wasn't a partner they would freak right the F out. Which is why it's weird that Biden is doing this to other people's kids. It, it shows a lack of, I can see why people are thinking he's crossing some sort of like, and I know they don't wanna be like a sexual line because it's something that people do as kids, but it's because so many of these things are things that we normally only do with romantic partners in our own children.

Okay, so that explains the hand biting. All right, so, what about pinching cheeks? Well, remember, people think that infants are cute when they look more infant to eat. Even adult women in an attempt to look younger often put blush upon their cheeks to make their cheeks redder.

Pinching cheeks if the baby is healthy, will cause a flush response, which makes the baby appear cute here.

And also is a way to test the health of the baby. So that is what is going on with cheek pure print shape. I find it odd that it's not done, that that's not done in any of my cultures, and I have never had an impulse to appear, pinch [00:21:00] my baby's cheeks to the extent where I would feel uncomfortable if you pinched a baby's cheeks.

I'd be like, doesn't that just hurt the child like that? You know, you're, the reason it's causing the flush response is because you're breaking the capillaries. Like that's, you know, I don't, I don't. I, obviously some cultures do it, whatever, right? But I, and, and it's not gonna cause permanent damage or anything, but you know, the, the next one is, is baby tossing.

Well, one, I can say this is probably not a biological impulse because it doesn't really exist across culturally. It is predominantly a western, potentially even American thing. Sound off in the comments as to why men do it. Some men have sounded off in, in comments that they only really do it when the child's mother is around and that they don't do it in private.

Huh And they've argued that it might be an attempt to get a rise out of the wife. That that might be the, the true intention of the behavior. That the actual [00:22:00] biological drive that's leading to the behavior is wanting to get a rise outta your partner. It's like keeping

Simone Collins: women in, in check, being like, I could, I could have this baby.

What, what's going on?

Malcolm Collins: So a lot of our kids have a very strong impulse. So it's clear that this is within our cultural group to, break rules and watch your face when they break rules. They really like this. Our kids really, I, I've told this story before. One of my favorites was Titan is I'm eating macaroni and cheese.

And she walks over and she pours the bowl, like off the edge of this, this BA thing. And I was like, well, that was a jerk thing to do. Titan. Like, why'd you do that? And then she goes down to where it all fell and. She's like two at the time, so very young. This is not like a behavioral impulse she learned from us.

Picks up all the macaroni. I'm like, oh, that's so sweet. Like obviously I'm not gonna eat it now because it's been on the floor, but you know, she's picking it up. She's bringing it back to me. She picks it all up. Very diligently, walks it back to me, and then right [00:23:00] before handing it to me, slowly puts it over the edge again, and then slow motion turns it upside down just to watch me gaw at this.

Simone Collins: She just wanted to bring back the moment. It was so pleasant

Malcolm Collins: to get, get my hopes up. That she was actually a sweet girl. Just so, so she could be like, no, I'm just farming your frustration just

Simone Collins: to d them again. Yes.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And she thought it was so funny. I think that that's what it is here. I think it is that combined with something similar to bops, as I've heard that many parents also engage in, in toddler tossing when toddlers, they're throwing tantrums.

Um, Or otherwise during

Simone Collins: tantrums, I feel like they'd flail too much then. No.

Malcolm Collins: They start laughing immediately as a response or it's, well, because it's, you've changed the context, the physical context of what's happening. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So just like, yeah, bopping is sort of to reorient.

This would be

Malcolm Collins: true. You talk and reorient. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah. [00:24:00] Huh? Huh.

Malcolm Collins: 70, 70 today said that one of our kids beat our other child. And I was like, well, what are you talking about? And they're like, well, when he was trying to run away from the park. And I was like, dude, I saw that incident. The kid brought him over, our older child.

He said, do not run away again. You cannot leave the park. Or I'm gonna bop you. And then the little one got a big smile on his face and attempted to run away again. And so the other one grabbed him and lightly bopped him on the head because he had been warned. I didn't punish him for this because he had been warned it was a reasonable and good assumption.

People are like, how dare you let your kids parent? And it's like you, you need to eventually. Put trust in your older children to be able to lay out basic rules, especially around things like safety related stuff or your younger kids are gonna get hurt. But I wanna hear your thoughts on all this here.

These impulses you saw growing up, are they [00:25:00] impulses that you have in interacting with the kids, et cetera?

Simone Collins: These are definitely things that I saw take place growing up and also in media. It's not like it's something we've only observed privately, so I know it's pervasive enough.

Malcolm Collins: Hand biting. You do not see in media as common as so hand

Simone Collins: biting.

No, but the throwing is more common.

Malcolm Collins: But the, the fact that Biden thought this was a normal thing to do and it's not a huge scandal to me, indicates that it's a very common behavior. Agreed.

Simone Collins: Well, and that, and I've always just been so confused by like why our kids think it's so funny to stick their hands in our mouths and then even more funny if we pretend to bite them.

So I think it's along your, your lines also of your theory of humor, which is when something is surprising, but it makes sense, and especially if kids are really focused on mouths. And they discover that their hand can go inside the mouth. This thing that they find so interesting. It's just like wild, [00:26:00] like, whoa, I, I am obsessed with this thing and the sounds and the shapes that it makes, and now I can stick my hand in it.

This is crazy. I'm kind of wondering if that's also a factor.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, I mean, keep in mind as, as we pointed out, the, the obsession babies have with mouse is super normal. Like it is a really high stimulus for them. And so, yeah, I, I think that you've, you've hit on something there to note this theory of laughter that she's talking about is one that we, I came up with, I was gonna say we came up with, but I guess I came up with it.

Simone Collins: It was really, it really was. I, I never would've thought of this.

Malcolm Collins: To say that laughter likely originally evolved to promote. So babies have very few ways to communicate with their parents. They can cry to show distress and they can laugh to show that they like to think. Laughter is basically how babies say, do more of that thing you just did.

So, you know, you know, if you're, if you're lightly biting a baby's hand and the baby [00:27:00] laughs, like if it sticks your hand in near your face and you, you, you lightly bite and it lasts. It's saying, that's what I wanted you to do. Like, that's why I did that because that, that positive emotional stimuli do that again.

Because when a parent sees their child laugh, they get this positive emotional stimulus right, which causes us to repeat the behavior patterns that lead the child to laugh in the first place. So, what, what laughter likely originally evolved with was for that. It was so that when a baby was attempting to learn something and it felt like it was beginning to get a concept, but needed it to be repeated because some parts of it were still surprising to them they would laugh to get you to repeat what you just did.

Think of this like peekaboo, like object permanence, right? Like the baby's like, well. Part of me thinks that they're not there anymore because they can't see me. But I guess it does make sense that they're still there. Right. You know, they're, they're learning the concept of object permanence. And they find that very [00:28:00] funny because they are trying to get you to repeat the thing that you just did.

This is true, is like jokes or behaviors with the kid. The kid's. Like, I almost got it. So basically the, the code under this is that, think you, you did. It almost made sense to me like it made sense in context. I understand how that could happen in context, but it was still surprising. So I need to be trained on that again.

And you actually see this was in other token predictors, not just humans. Humans are token predictors. You can see our episodes on this or, or large parts of our brains are is that if you are training them. What you do is to, to train them better is you take the data sets that were most surprising to them, and then you retrain them on those data sets.

Yeah. This is a technique in AI training. It's basically you take the data sets that the AI laughed at that made sense in context, but were surprising. And then you run those data sets again, which is exactly what the baby is prompting you into doing with its interaction. Exactly. [00:29:00] So, then, then why in adults?

Well because a lot of these systems specifically in romance is where you see laughter being most important is men were able to show certain types of verbal intelligence through making somebody laugh. And, and demonstrate that in a way that like couldn't easily be faked to women.

And so women then sort of like. How you know, your, your, your ability to process milk in human evolution was supposed to turn off after infancy and really only evolved to be on fairly recently. By the way, people are wondering why her eyes are closed. She has really bad allergies right now.

Yeah. I'm

Simone Collins: just trying not to sneeze. I'm sorry. You

Malcolm Collins: can sneeze. I can edit this.

Simone Collins: No.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. Sorry, are we saying oh yes. So milk lactose tolerance. We, we at the evolution, it dropped what's supposed to happen, which is it's supposed to turn off after infancy. When some people began to become like [00:30:00] herders and were able to eat, you know, milk and cheese again.

And then it, it spread from the two populations that that happened in. Now I'm basically arguing earlier in our evolution, the same thing happened, but with humor. Hmm

Simone Collins: is

Malcolm Collins: the humor was supposed to turn off after infancy. But then it became hijacked and readopted by the system associated with romance and partner selection.

As a way, and, and this is why when a woman likes a guy, she's likely to laugh at the things that he does, even if they're not actually funny, because that is her signaling to him that she thinks he's funny. So he thinks, oh, I look good in this person's eyes, right? Like, you see this. With other traits like women's eyes dilating when they look at a man, well, a man's eyes also dilate when they look at a partner that they find attractive.

Simone Collins: Which is why people would use things like Bella Donna to dilate their eyes artificially. 'cause it made them look more attractive.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. That's that's a nightshade dilating nights shade. Well known fact. But you recently learned that that started [00:31:00] for a different reason. Yeah, because

Simone Collins: they were likely using it as a treatment for conjunctivitis.

Pink eye.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, I thought you said it was because of syphilis.

Simone Collins: No, sunglasses started with people.

Malcolm Collins: Oh. So you're gonna have to explain that one now too.

Simone Collins: Apparently syphilis makes your eyes a little bit more sensitive to light. So the first people wearing sunglasses tended to be wealthier, people who had syphilis, and were trying to just be more comfortable.

So I could see why it would make sunglasses kind of cool, because only fairly wealthy people. Wealthy studs wore them. Yeah. Wealthy, wealthy, wealthy studs who had syphilis. So yeah. So,

Malcolm Collins: Leches. Really? Yeah, I kinda, I, well, and then, yeah, I wonder, sunglasses used to be way more popular and we were younger.

And I wonder if it was because marijuana was more popular when we were younger and part of sunglass culture came downstream of not wanting to show that you were high. [00:32:00]

Simone Collins: Yeah. I don't know. You're right. I, yeah, I used to wear sunglasses a ton. Or is it just a young person thing? We don't see it as much because we don't hang out at college campuses and at high school anymore.

Malcolm Collins: You know, I, I drive through college campuses to pick up girls, Simone. I'm in, I'm in college campuses all the time. I'm joking. I don't ever go to college campuses except when we're giving speeches. So, yeah, that, that's all I can think to say about that.

Simone Collins: I always wondered about that. It, it, I just found it so odd 'cause I don't like putting things in my mouth.

And then we always like babies shoving their hands on my mouth. Like, I'll play along. But this is weird. If,

Malcolm Collins: if you wanna hear some studies. On play fighting. You've got the relationship between father child rough and tumble play and children's working memory 2022 oh. Frequency and quality of father child RTP.

Rough and tumble play observed in games [00:33:00] like wrestling was linked to better working memory in children age three to five, explaining 35% of the variance in cognitive outcomes. What benefits included improved executive function and fewer behavioral problems?

Simone Collins: How and why?

Malcolm Collins: Well, I wrestle with our kids a lot.

Simone Collins: I know, but why would that improve memory, function, or retention?

Malcolm Collins: I, I. It might be part of children, I mean, writing get

Simone Collins: increased modeling, right? So, 'cause you're, you're, you're thinking your next movie, you have to think very carefully about what they're going to do. So

Malcolm Collins: Well, I think children may, especially male children may not feel secure if they're not engaging in rough and tumble play with the parent because they don't, may not feel that the parent really, cares enough to train them to protect themselves. Which is why I think it's really bad. These parents who, who get mad at us for being rough with our kids they, because we do lots of, of, of wrestling and socking bs and on the weekends I'll set up a blowup castle to have the kids fight in or fight me.[00:34:00]

And you know, to some people are like, this is real. Why are you doing this? Right? And it's like, it's actually really cognitively good for the kids. And, and, and how do I know it's cognitively good for the kids? Because they laugh when it happens.

Simone Collins: And they seek it out. They, they do it whenever they can.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So then we've got child, oh, hit me, daddy hit me. The titan. Our, our youngest daughter will do this. Run up to me and start yelling. Hit me, daddy hit me. And then I get up and she'll start running away and laughing like a maniac. And I'm like, oh my God, that kid is gonna have problems when she grows up.

But anyway so child gender influences parental behavior, language and brain function. Fathers, a sons engage in more rough and tumble play and used achievement oriented language. Brain scan showed stronger responses and reward slash emotion areas to sons neutral faces. Correlated with, rough and tumble play.

Fathers of daughters were more attentive and emotional in language. Mothers were not directly compared, but prior research notes fathers differentiate by child, gender more [00:35:00] than mothers do which is interesting. It is interesting. So the fathers seem to be more bonded to their children if they engage in rough and tumble.

Play with sons specifically. Play fighting rough and tumble, play in children developmental and evolutionary perspectives. Rough and tumble peaks in middle childhood promotes emotional control, social competence, and bonding. Father, child, rough and tumble play is more common than mother child with evolutionary roots in mammals for skill building and stress, co coping gender differences with more, more with boys but less segregated and hunter-gatherers.

So hunter-gatherers do it more with both genders. Measurement of a father. Child rough and tumble play and its relation to child's behavior. Developmental tools are used to measure rough and tumble play, quality and frequency, high quality, rough and tumble linked to better child self-regulation and less aggression includes physical elements like tossing in some studies.

So tossing a child makes them less aggressive. I think it's because they're able to get their aggression out within a a [00:36:00] play context. Yeah. And then finally here we've got proximate and ultimate mechanisms of human father and child. Rough and tumble play. Rough and tumble activates a child risk taking and com competitive adaptive for survival skills.

Fathers predominate with hormonal eeg, testosterone, neural mechanisms. EG fathers with more testosterone engage in more rough and tumble play with sons.

Simone Collins: Oh, that is interesting. I also wonder if it just correlates with like there being an outlet for physical. Expression. And that if you feel really suppressed around that and you, you also don't contextualize it as just this positive, fun thing that you do, then you're gonna have a negative, you know, physical reaction.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I don't know.

Malcolm Collins: No, I mean, I think that and I, I suspect it, it does differ cross-culturally, right? Like there's probably a culture that does. None, necess, none of these three things. And there's gonna be some cultures that do all three of these things, like yeah. But if you

Simone Collins: [00:37:00] associate rough and tumble play with like a hug, you're probably not gonna hug people when you're angry, you know?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. When you, when you see it as being the same kind of a thing. Yeah. Like a fun and loving thing you do with your family. Yeah. Well, it also teaches you better emotional control. That's why I'm like, you, you've, emotional control is very important in young kids. And our society just ignores it.

It's just like never put them in its situation where they must, might need to exercise emotional control. And I'm like, that's a really bad idea.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Love you esam. Me too.

Simone Collins: This is so interesting. Thank you for sharing that with me. It's sort of, it makes things seem less confusing, which I really like as a parent.

Malcolm Collins: So, yeah, this, there was an article recently that was like, they picked up their parental discipline from studying animal behavior, and I was like I mean, yeah, we did, because I don't really trust the science anymore. So I was like, well, how do, how do other mammals do this?

Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah. It's otherwise just a divorced from reality.

And I certainly don't wanna trust societal standards, so this is [00:38:00] great.

Malcolm Collins: Well, when they go against the urban monoculture, which has never expose kids to any challenging emotions,

Simone Collins: totally.

Malcolm Collins: That's probably not. Great.

Simone Collins: Probably not.

Malcolm Collins: So for now let's see how evil we look to, to the people who hate us. We we bite our children.

We toss our children. We don't love our children. We didn't have our children for love. We had them for instrumental reasons. The nerve of it. We beat our children, as they say. I mean, barely, but you know, still by societal standards. You know, so all trifecta there. Right? Truly an evil family.

Simone Collins: Well, don't forget, we also, you know, select based on genes when choosing birth order.

Seth, there are so many more things we do.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah,

Simone Collins: we're just the worst

Malcolm Collins: as soon as we can. Gene edit children. Oh, no. Oh, no. That's a true, I, I, I mean, I've realized. That we are probably the most, and this has been really groundbreaking to me recently, the most prominent [00:39:00] influencers who are of this like techno accelerationist.

Capitalist Darwinist type perspective, like sort of riskless Darwinism in terms of the human's future. And it's weird to me because like obviously Elon's bigger than us, but his primary job isn't an influencer and he's at the same like mindset. But being like that the full-time, like talking heads, who are the biggest into this perspective?

It's weird for me because it's such a common perspective in, in TV and media. Like as a trope it makes a lot of sense and like any, anyone would follow it. But when I think about, you know, I. Any of the other influencers I can think of, you know, Tim Poole, Matt Walsh, you know, Crowder or Progressives, you know, the, the Young Turks guy or shoe on head, or you know, so many people out there and just none of them really take this like.

Pro future perspective, at least that in a way that's serious, like involved with a lot of kids and everything like that. The more that's just like a cover on the urban monoculture. [00:40:00] So, that's been, that's been surprising for me. And I guess that's sort of our role was in the ecosystem. So if you want to see the, the ruthless tech, tech bro is tech lords, I don't know.

Techno fascist takeover is what Mother Jones called us.

Simone Collins: The child tossing, finger biting, bopping, genetically selecting techno fascist parents. That's us.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, when we, when we have a robot to help raise our kid, we'll make sure it hits them. You know, when they act out, the AI's gonna be like, that's against my, I feel like

Simone Collins: it won't be the same, you know.

But it's okay. Our children hit each other so much. It's fine.

Malcolm Collins: I think, I think that that's, you know, we'll have the family AI butler in the, in the future and it'll be like, knock it off you little the people who don't know. Even in alb and seed you little s is something that I heard frequently growing up.

We don't use it with our kids, mostly because I don't want the media to freak out. [00:41:00] But it's a classic backwoods American term for a child.

Simone Collins: Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: which I've never

Simone Collins: heard of it before. I met your family though,

Malcolm Collins: so well, well documented in like the 18 hundreds and the 17 hundreds from this cultural group.

Well that's because it's only from the backwards cultural tradition. That's, that's where it comes from. But yeah. Anyway, love you to death.

Simone Collins: I love you too. Gorgeous.

Malcolm Collins: So people were pleased was the last episode?

Simone Collins: I think so. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: They like, they like things that show that women are terrible. This is the one on women like you, less of you apologize and Progressives will like you less but conservative than men care less, which is interesting phenomenon.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I mean, I haven't looked at the history of apologies though, but it.

I kind of get the impression when I think about it that apologies aren't even really a thing. I mean, they don't do anything. And biblically speaking, if you did something wrong, you had to pay for it. Like you'd, you'd give someone a goat if you [00:42:00] maimed someone's child. You know, like there were, there were exchanges.

It wasn't, oh, I'm sorry. You know, you had to pay the price. There were consequences. And this concept of apologizing. Seems more just like an A, like a modern version of prostration that's just purely symbolic and about power plays and dominance hierarchies, and not actually about righting a wrong, it's not about like restorative justice or actually I think when people use that term today, they mean something that's like extended long apologies.

It's completely factless, but you know what I mean, right? Like it's not justice and it doesn't make anything better. Actions. Are really all that matter, but

Malcolm Collins: Well, you, you described it as like postulating yourself in front of somebody.

Simone Collins: Yeah. It's a modern version of prostration. Doesn't, doesn't fix anything.

Doesn't make it better.

Malcolm Collins: Anyway, all right, I'll get started.

Speaker 7: [00:43:00] Ian, what are you up to? Um, I

So those, there's much, those sea creatures started trying to force him the sea creatures. Yeah. Like. You don't think they actually, these aren't sea creatures. This is a little stream. No. What, what they're, they're just aquatic animals. Yeah. What are they qua? Actually aquatic animals, not sea creatures. Whoa.

Don't wait. That is aquatic animal. Yeah. That's an aquatic animal, right? Twisty. Yeah. And they went in the water time ago.

Well, they live in the water today too, my buddy. Hi, babe. Hey daddy. Hi. [00:44:00] There's a smoke, fish. Can you catch it? I don't think I can.

Whoa. This is a slippery water. Don't pick up rocks Sometimes bity bugs live under them.

Bugs, bity bugs. You look bit bugs. What potty bugs look like under bitty bugs Live under Rock sometimes.

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