Human Behavior Brought by “Kawaii” Emotion

- An Example of Animal Toys for Infants -

Abstract

We discussed how people behave on seeing kawaii animal toys. Many studies have indicated the effects of kawaii emotions. However, few have described how they are expressed behaviorally. Therefore, this paper reports observable behavioral indicators. Specifically, we observed 4 human behaviors: smiling, touching, talking, and watching (kawaii toys or people) - during conversations when they see animal toys. Participants were divided into two groups. One (kawaii group) selected the animal toys that they felt had the most kawaii, and another (non-kawaii group) selected the animal toys that they felt had the least kawaii. Time to behavior was measured by annotation software, analyzed by analysis of variance. Comparison of groups showed that kawaii group was smiling, talking, and watching people for a longer time. Conversely, non-kawaii group was watching animal toys for a longer time. These results deepened our understanding of human behavior caused by kawaii emotion.