Ever had the hairs on the back of your neck “stand up” while watching a scary movie or when you walk into a freezing cold room in only a t-shirt?

Almost everyone has gotten goose bumps at one point in their life or another, but what exactly are they and why do we get them?

Goose bumps are caused by your body’s nervous system and are part of the body’s “fight or flight” system meaning that, like microexpressions, they are completely involuntary.  They are caused by tightening muscles, which pull body hair into an erect position.

They occur mainly for two reasons: 1. when it’s cold and 2. when someone experiences the emotion of fear.

In animals that have fur, individual hairs on end (“standing up”) in cold weather is a sensible course of action, since the erect hairs can trap air, adding a layer of insulation to protect the animal from the cold.

In the case of fear, goose bumps in an animal with fur causes the animal to look larger, potentially intimidating the predator which is threatening it, giving the animal a chance to run or fight.

In humans, these bumps are a vestigial reflex, left over from a time when humans had more hair; a wide variety of animals demonstrate this interesting reflex in response to certain stimuli.

Remember that emotions are transient, bio-psycho-social reactions to events that have consequences for our welfare and potentially require immediate action (Matsumoto, Frank and Hwang: Nonverbal Communication: Science and Applications).

So next time you get goose bumps, just remember they are a biological, involuntary reaction that is elicited by your body.

 Who is better at reading others’ facial expressions, Men or Women ?

 Marie Claire highlights this interesting question.  According to the magazine, researchers from Edingburgh University found that via brain scans the rush of blood to the region of the brain involved in making emotional decisions suggests  the male brain has to work harder to make emotional judgements.

The scientists presented both men and women with photographs of faces and had them rate how intelligent and approachable the individuals in the photos appeared.

An interesting find was that men took longer to decide how approachable the people in the pictures were.  Despite taking their time men did ultimately come to the same conclusion as women.

This suggests that in life’s necessary quick judgment calls women are more efficient. Perhaps, this is due to our close connection to women’s close tie to their children and having (especially int he couple of years) determine what they feel with out the aid of language.

Professor Lawrie said of this study:

“Our findings suggest that men have developed strategies to cope with their lesser natural empathy by over-activating the parts of the brain that understand social cues.“