I understand why people get goosebumps when they’re cold, but why do our bodies have the same reaction to things that cause emotion? I was out downtown today and there was someone just casually playing a beautiful piano piece and I got goosebumps. Why does this happen?
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I don’t have a perfect answer for that. I will say emotions are really connected to physical sensations in the body. That’s why people get upset stomachs when they are anxious, feel their insides drop when they hear bad news, feel “the butterflies” when they’re in love.
I don’t know why emotion is connected to physical sensations. Some things like adrenaline rushes for scary situations or depression for hopeless situations have evolutionary purposes that help people survive.
goosbumps are a remnant of our mammal evolution. every mammal with fur has this reaction. knowing that goosbumps mainly form due to the emotions of fear and deep awe ( so feeling small and fearfull)
so basically goosbumps serve two purposes in animals: retention of heat and warding of predators.
goosbumps form because tiny muscles in our skin pull together to close off our porous dermis, which means we lose heat less quickly. the added benifit is that all the hairs that stand up straight make us look really big, which can make predators become scared of us
that being said, goosbumps from a beautiful experience (e.g. an aesthetic one) is still a big mystery in neuroscience. A PhD at south. cal. did research this and found that people who get goosbumps from music have a differently structured brain to process certain types of stimuli and emotions.
it might be possible that this rewireing crossed a few wires going from our fear response to our happiness response or something (a as a neuropsychologist for more on this 😅)
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