In the early 1990s, ABC aired a sitcom about an anthropomorphic family of dinosaurs aptly titled Dinosaurs. Within this nuclear family, the most memorable member of the household was the baby appropriately named Baby. Throughout the series, the mischievous Baby would often torment his father and show off his feisty personality. After these antics, the infant would defend his actions with the simple catchphrase “I’m the baby. Gotta love me.”
Nearly 30 years later, that same motto can also capture the Internet’s relationship with the breakout star of The Mandalorian, Baby Yoda (known on the show as The Child). Regardless of their level of Star Wars fandom, all viewers “gotta love” Baby Yoda. The character has such instant appeal that Werner Herzog, who plays the mysterious Client on the show, purportedly wept when he saw Baby Yoda on set and described him as “heartbreakingly beautiful.” If Baby Yoda can bring a notoriously hardened filmmaker to tears, what chance do any of us have resisting the infant’s charms? And why is it that we all love Baby Yoda so much? The simple answer is that he’s adorable, but there’s much more to that explanation than you might think.
Baby Yoda’s cuteness is rooted in evolutionary psychology. Humans have grown to associate certain traits with cuteness over thousands of years; according to research cited by BBC News, zoologist Konrad Lorenz included “large eyes, snub nose, bulging forehead, and retreating chin” among these traits. Anthropologist speculate that humans have developed these associations over millennia because human infants (who typically capture these traits) are generally helpless and require supervision and nurturing to survive. Research suggests that seeing human infants triggers our instinctual drive to care for and protect our young.
And that mental connection is not just reserved for human babies. Studies compiled by BBC Earth illustrate many animals fall under this “baby schema” when they are young. Puppies are a classic example of this schema; just like a human baby, a puppy typically has a “large head relative to the body, chubby cheeks, a high forehead, a small nose and mouth, and rounder [body].” Once again, these cute traits spark our desire to nurture these creatures and squeal in excitement when we see them. In other words, adorable baby animals take advantage of the way our brains are hardwired and make us fall in love with them.
If we look at the list of characteristics in Lorenz’s baby schema, Baby Yoda ticks almost all of the boxes. With his big eyes, tiny nose, huge head, and small body, Baby Yoda is adorable in the same ways that young mammals are. Of course, Baby Yoda didn’t evolve into these features; the minds behind The Mandalorian clearly did their research when designing him.
Moreover, The Child’s actions mirror those of infant humans and other animals. BBC Earth explains that behaviors like playfulness and clumsiness also trigger our baby schema. Given Baby Yoda’s penchant for waddling around, chasing after frogs, and meddling with Mando’s ship, he clearly engages in antics associated with cuteness.
Just as we are delighted by puppies and kittens, we “gotta love” Baby Yoda. His appeal goes beyond Star Wars fandom and taps directly into thousands of years of evolution and childrearing. It’s no wonder that Mando would go to such lengths to protect Baby Yoda and gradually adopt him as a foundling. Regardless of what race or species he is, Mando can’t fight human nature.
