Liberal Arts Blog — Why Do People Get Goosebumps (Horripilation), Cry Tears of Joy, and Blush (Erubescence) When Happy?
Liberal Arts Blog — Wednesday is the Joy of Science, Engineering, and Technology Day
Today’s Topic — Why do people get goosebumps (horripilation), cry tears of joy, and blush (erubescence) when happy?
My current business is making others happy. When I succeed strangers say things like “You give me goosebumps” or “you make me cry” or they blush involuntarily. What is the physiology and biochemistry of these responses? This morning I decided to do a little research and find out. You may have suspected adrenaline, the hypothalamus, endorphins, and oxytocin are involved. And sure enough.
Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
GOOSEBUMPS — adrenaline rush triggered by hypothalamus, a holdover from prehistoric days when our hair was much thicker than today (although we still have as many hairs as a chimp — about 5 million)
1. “Goosebumps are the end result of an adrenaline rush meant to ward off a big chill — or predators.”
2. “It’s a common occurrence. A sudden freezing gust of wind or spike in air conditioning causes your hair to stand on end and our skin to prickle.”
3. “If the chill is strong enough to dip our body below 98.6 degrees, your skin sounds an alarm. Body muscles contract in quick bursts to generate heat and your hypothalamus triggers a rush of adrenaline. As the tiny muscles tighten, the hairs shoot straighrt in to the air, pulling the skin at their base upward. Goosebumps are born.”
NB: “A holdover from our hominid history, goosebumps once took advantage of the generous amounts of hair our ancient ancestors had. In cold conditions, swathes of har standing on end acted as insulation trapping a layer of air next to skin. Each hair standing at attention also had the benefit of making our ancestors seem bigger to would-be enemies, which is why you also get goosebumps when you’re afraid. (And sometime even when you’re experiencing other strong emotions.) More than a million years ago, our ancestors began shedding their thick coat of har, and goosebumps’ utility plummeted. Today we humans have about 5 million body hairs.
Roughly the same as a chimp. But ours are much finer, rendering goosebumps a useless relic.” (first link below)
Second link below: “Strong emotions, arousal, or motivation may also cause goose bumps. This happens because the hair erecting muscles are part of the sympathetic nervous system. When stimulated by brain signals the muscles contract, making the hairs stand up. Emotion that cause horripilation include fear, shock, anxiety, love, sexual desire, and inspiration.”
Arrector pilli is the name of the tiny muscles in the hair follicles.
TEARS OF JOY — endorphins, oxytocin plus a little background on the three kinds of tears; four kinds of tears of joy (third link below)
1. Basal tears are “in your eyes all day. They act as a lubricant and disinfectant for your eyes. In addition to the water and salt that you might expect in a tear, there is also mucus and oil. The oil protects the tear from evaporating.”
2. “Irritant tears” flush out foreign objects. “Psychic tears” contain stress hormones.
3. Four kinds of tears of joy: amusement (byproduct of laughter), affection (eg. at a wedding), beauty (“beautiful music or a riveting nature scene”), and achievement (“could happen when you achieve something important or overcome an obstacle or hurdle”).
NB: “This study reviewed reports from more than 13,000 people and also found interesting cultural similarities. People who live in Western societies or in societies that focus on the individual were more likely to cry tears of beauty or amusement. Participants who live in communal cultures showed more tears of affection. Women are move likely to cry tears of happiness than men.”
“Crying tears of joy has a purpose. They can help you keep your emotional balance….You can have two different emotions in response to a single cause. This is called a dimorphous expression. Dimporphous expressions can help you regulate your emotions so they don’t overwhelm you.”
BLUSHING (“erubescence”) — NOT ALWAYS ABOUT SHAME — increased capillary flow to the facial skin but can also can extend to the ears, neck and upper chest; frequent versus infrequent blushers, flushing versus blushing.
1. “Blushing was associated with higher levels of shame in frequent blushers than in infrequent blushers.”
2. “In infrequent blushers, blushing was associated with higher levels of pleasant affect, suggesting that for infrequent blushers the blush may occur in positive social encounters.”
3. “Blushing is often unpleasant and can be maladaptive, and may contribute to the common belief that blushing is an undesirable response. Frequent blushers generally reported lower levels of dominant behavior, higher levels of submissive behavior, and perceived their social interaction partners as more powerful and less affiliative. This was independent of whether they blushed or not, suggesting that altered social behaviors and perceptions are associated with blushing-associated traits rather than with the blushing state.” (fourth link below)
NB: Blushing (a reddening of the face) can be stimulated by “passion, embarrassment, shyness, fear, anger, or romantic stimulation….Severe blushing is common in people who have social anxiety.”
“Blushing is generally distinguished, despite a close physiological relation, from flushing, which is more intensive and extends over more of the body, and seldom has a mental source. Idiopathic craniofacial erythema is a medical condition where a person blushes strongly with little or no provocation. People who have a social phobia are particularly prone to idiopathic craniofacial erythema.”
Bodily Functions Explained: Goosebumps | Pfizer
What is horripilation, and why does it happen?
What to Know About Tears of Happiness
Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Concomitants of Facial Blushing during Everyday Social Encounters
https://john-muresianu.medium.com/
Liberal Arts Blog — Thinking in Threes: Aeronautics, Medicine, Sports (Pitch, Yaw, and Roll)
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
My spin — then periodically review, re-rank, and exchange your list with those you love. I call this the “Orion Exchange” because seven is about as many as any human can digest at a time. Game?
A LINK TO THE LAST FOUR YEARS OF POSTS ORGANIZED BY THEME:
PDF with headlines — Google Drive
ATTACHMENT BELOW -
#1 A graphic guide to justice (9 metaphors on one page).
#2 “39 Songs, Prayers, and Poems: the Keys to the Hearts of Seven Billion People” — Adams House Senior Common Room Presentation, (11/17/20)
NB: Palestine Orion (Decision) — let’s exchange Orions, let’s find Rumi’s field (“Beyond all ideas of right and wrong, there is a field. Meet me there” Rumi, 13 century Persian Sufi mystic)
YOUR TURN
Please share the coolest thing you learned this week related to science, engineering, or technology.
Or, even better, the coolest or most important thing you learned in your life related to science and engineering.
This is your chance to make someone else’s day. Or to cement in your mind something that you might otherwise forget. Or to think more deeply about something dear to your heart. Continuity is key to depth of thought.
