The Phenomenology of Goosebumps

You feel it with a sense of urgency every time a chilly breeze runs the length of your skin. You feel it with a sense of awe every time you are moved with deep emotion. You feel it with a sense of dread and adrenaline every time you think you’re being followed or watched. All of these cause the same physiological reaction: goosebumps. What makes your hair stand on end? Could they be more than – as our guest today calls it – an “evolutionary hangover”? Professor Rod Sinclair, Director of Epworth Dermatology and Professor of Dermatology at the University of Melbourne, joins us on the air to explain.