I’ve given quite a few films I’ve seen a full five stars on Douban. All my five-star films meet one ‘physiological standard’: they gave me goosebumps while I was watching them. Goosebumps are a prerequisite for a five-star film, as far as I’m concerned.
So when I found out that some people can summon goosebumps on command, I felt a little envious and jealous (I’ll explain why later).
Recently, scientists conducted the first systematic study in history of people with the superpower to produce goosebumps at will. The paper has now been posted online as a preprint (it hasn’t passed peer review yet, and I have a feeling it won’t pass at all).
The study was simple and pretty blunt: the researchers set up a Facebook group called ‘voluntary piloerection’ (this bizarre ability actually has a technical term!), put out a call for heroes across the world, and invited anyone with the ability of ‘voluntary piloerection’ to fill out a questionnaire in the group. That was it. (The researchers also happened to measure their personalities, but there weren’t any especially noteworthy conclusions.)
The study ultimately received responses from 32 people with voluntary piloerection. Judging from their answers, the ability to produce goosebumps deliberately has quite a few things in common across people:
More than 3/4 of the respondents said that the sensation or action of triggering goosebumps began at the back of the head or neck;
Many described a trembling or tingling sensation along their spines;
90% of the respondents could control goosebumps only on their arms;
Almost all the respondents said they didn’t need to use imagination or memory to produce goosebumps. They just had to give the command (roughly like raising a hand).
Interestingly, although they didn’t summon goosebumps by calling on emotion, the goosebumps they had already summoned could influence their subsequent emotional experiences—especially the emotional responses of ‘absorption’ and ‘awe’. These are precisely the emotional experiences that would normally trigger goosebumps. In everyday life, we usually get goosebumps because an experience makes us feel awe-struck or shaken to the core.
In fact, nearly three-quarters of the respondents said that during aesthetic activities (music, dancing, and sex, for example), they would deliberately trigger goosebumps to intensify the experience. Half of the respondents said they used their ability to prolong goosebumps triggered by emotion.
Now you see why I felt a little envious and jealous of them. If I had the superpower of voluntary piloerection, then even if I were watching a four-star film, I could, whenever I wanted, summon goosebumps and forcibly elevate my feelings of awe and impact to a five-star level. Wouldn’t that make life a whole lot better in an instant?
p.s.:
The paper mentioned in the article: The voluntary control of piloerection peerj.com/preprints…
This article was written with reference to the Research Digest article First systematic study of people who can give themselves goose-bumps at will (by Christian Jarrett).
Note
- The articles in this ‘New Findings in Psychology: A Short Course’ series were short popular-science pieces/essays written to accompany content related to Zhichao Wei: New Findings in Psychology. They were published on the now-closed platform Fantuan, and the original link no longer exists.
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