Distinguishing Between Goosebumps, Tingling, Coldness, and Shivers According to Affective Composition

• Main Author: Wadsworth, Lena Marie
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: W&M ScholarWorks 2018
• Subjects: Psychology
• Online Access: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd/1550153988; https://scholarworks.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6591&context=etd

"The chills" refers to a set of bodily sensations – goosebumps, tingling, coldness, and shivers – that accompany emotion. Maruskin, Thrash and Elliot (2012) identified two higher order clusters of chills sensations that differed in affective tone. "Goosetingles" tend to accompany positive emotions, tend to be elicited by reward-related stimuli, and enhance feelings of closeness with others. "Coldshivers" tend to accompany negative emotions, tend to be elicited by threat-related stimuli, and enhance feelings of social isolation. Factor analyses have also identified four lower order factors of chills (goosebumps, tingling, coldness, and shivers), but validity research has not established distinct nomological nets of these four sensations. The goal of this study was to test the discriminant validity of the lower order factor structure of the chills according to affective composition. Results supported my hypotheses regarding the relative locations of goosebumps, tingling, coldness, and shivers along a 12-Point Circumplex of Core Affect (Yik et al., 2011) at the Between Videos level of analysis, where goosebumps accompanied states higher on arousal, and lower on pleasure than tingling, and coldness accompanied states lower on arousal, and higher on displeasure than shivers. Reasons for an unexpected pattern of results regarding tingling at the Cell level, need to be explored in future research.