Looking at images of cute baby animals may not be as distracting from your workload as employers may think. A new study out of Japan finds that staring at adorable baby animals may actually boost concentration and the ability to complete assigned tasks compared with other popular images one may see while surfing the web. In Japan, cute things are called “kawaii,” and researchers at Hiroshima University wanted to find out whether looking at a cute object does more than produce temporary positive feelings and if it could actually influence a person’s behavior. They gave three experiments to 48 university students (24 male, 24 female) to put the power of cuteness to the test.
