How do goosebumps occur

Perhaps a new instrument is introduced, or the singer hits a particularly high note, or the music gets suddenly louder. Like a branch snapping behind you in the woods, your emotional brain immediately treats this new sound like a potential threat, and for good reason. For example, we use the music of Pink Floyd to study goosebumps because their wailing vocals can mimic the sound of a child in distress, which would cause most people to prepare to jump into action.

Similarly, an emotional speech might cause this response when the speaker gets suddenly louder or the crowd starts cheering.

The response shifts from fear to pleasure, and the brain releases dopamine as a reward for correctly assessing the lack of an actual threat. That dopamine causes a wave of good feelings, and you recognize the stimuli as enjoyable again.

It actually has to do with personality traits. In psychology, there are the big five traits , such as openness, that are further divided into subcategories. It used to be thought that people who were more likely to experience goosebumps ranked higher on openness to emotion , a trait associated with appreciation of beauty and variety. That makes a certain amount of sense, because music is emotional. But when we hooked volunteers up to skin monitors and played music for them, we were able to objectively monitor when and how often people were getting goosebumps.

This was different from previous studies, where volunteers self-reported how often they were experiencing them. What we found was that people who were ranked high on openness to ideas were actually more likely to get goosebumps. While this is related to emotional openness, this trait is more associated with imagination and curiosity.

I believe that active listening and engaging intellectually with the music — such as predicting what will happen next in a song or imagining the imagery it evokes — is the key to experiencing goosebumps, not just letting the music wash over you emotionally. Michael W. Richardson Michael W. This is because the physical exertion activates your sympathetic, or instinctual, nervous system. Sometimes, goosebumps may crop up for no reason at all.

Many animals also experience what could be categorized as goosebumps, including porcupines and dogs. On the most basic level, goosebumps can help keep you warm. In animals, this action also raises hairs in a way that traps air to create insulation. Humans have much less body hair than many other nonhuman animals with hair. As your body heats up, your goosebumps will slowly begin to disappear. The same goes for bodily exertions that can cause goosebumps, such as having a bowel movement.

After a bowel movement, goosebumps will disappear. Two common responses include increased electrical activity in the muscles just under the skin and increased depth or heaviness of breathing. These two responses appear to trigger goosebumps. Please note the date of last review or update on all articles. No content on this site, regardless of date, should ever be used as a substitute for direct medical advice from your doctor or other qualified clinician.

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