But there is more to it than that as other things can also cause goosebumps. In humans goosebumps are most often associated with unpleasant situations, for instance when you’re cold or feeling afraid. Porcupines, for example, puff out their quills and cats puff out their fur when sensing danger. Many animals react similarly when threatened causing their fur to puff out, which makes the animal look bigger and more dangerous. Meaning that goosebumps are caused by your instincts.Īnd we’re not the only animals to deal with goosebumps either. The nerves from the sympathetic nervous system, the ones that control our fight or flight response, control these tiny skin muscles. Goosebumps are caused by tiny muscles flexing in the skin, which makes the hair follicles rise up a bit.
We can’t control when we get goosebumps and when we don’t, they are an involuntary reaction. Each of the medical terms describes a temporary change in the skin from smooth to bumpy, most commonly developed after exposure to cold. But even here we find references to the plucked birds, as cutis means skin and anser means goose. These include horripilation, piloerection, pilomotor reflex and cutis anserine. Of course there are also more formal, medical terms for goosebumps. There is just no escaping the similarity between the effect and the skin of a plucked bird. In Dutch they use kippenvel which translates to chicken skin, in German they use Gänsehaut or goose skin, and in Spanish it is called piel de gallina, again chicken skin. This gives our skin the appearance of that of a plucked bird, as is reflected in the name of the effect in many languages.
The hairs also pull a little bump of skin, the hair follicle, up with them. When we get goosebumps, the hairs on our arms, legs or torso stand up straight. Why do we get them? Do they serve a purpose? And what’s with that name? What does our skin have to do with a plucked bird? Time to delve into the science behind goosebumps. We’ve all had goosebumps at some point, most of the time we can hazard a guess as to why they show up but sometimes we have no idea.
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