Several studies have shown that emotional goosebumps are tightly related to episodes of being moved/touched. But what about other emotions? A wide-spread language use associates emotional goosebumps with experiencing horror (horripilation); however, to date there is no empirical evidence that horror films actually elicit goosebumps. In our new study, we examine systematically which emotions (other than being moved) can go along with goosebumps. To this end, we take recourse to film scenes that include a variety of film genres and target emotions.

Here is the movie about the study

Publication

Wassiliwizky, E., Jacobsen, T., Heinrich, J., Schneiderbauer, M., & Menninghaus, W. (2017). Tears falling on goosebumps: Co-occurrence of emotional lacrimation and emotional piloerection indicates a psychophysiological climax in emotional arousal. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 41. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00041