Supernormal Stimuli -- Why are we attracted to superheroes?

With all the talk about Avengers in the past week, I thought to share something a little psychological, related to superheroes.

I learnt about this over the week when I took an online design course on Lynda -- Universal Principles of Design. It's very interesting and it makes me think twice about things.

I wanted to share a little about this "supernormal stimuli". It's defined by the course as "variation of a familiar stimulus that elicits a response stronger than the stimulus for which it evolved". Sounds like a heap of blablabla, but what it basically means is, there are a few responses that we react to on a subconscious level, and people make use of this to create products.

For example, people are drawn to things like faces, especially baby faces -- we are drawn to things like physical and facial features. This is the reason why Barbie dolls sell so well, because they have exaggerated physical and facial features, which speaks to our subconscious and we are naturally drawn to it.

Another example are superheros and their costumes. We're drawn to things that are masculine and feminine (which I believe are biological for the sake of reproduction right?). V-shaped torsos represent strength, and hour glass shaped women represent fertility, and therefore with exaggerated versions of both in the form of superheroes attracts us to them.

This is so fascinating to me, yet a little scary. There are actually a lot of things at play when we look at design of products, shows, food, cartoons and so much more. They not only play on our conscious minds, they even play on our sub-conscious minds. It is to certain extent even manipulative, but fascinating nonetheless.