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Why Do We Throw & Bite Babies? (Other than them being delicious)
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
Published on 4 months ago