205 undergraduates read 195 poems and reported experiences of "the chills" - physical sensations like goosebumps and shivers in response. The study found that poems written when authors felt strongly inspired to convey an idea predicted greater experiences of chills in readers. A principal components analysis showed experiences like goosebumps and shivers formed a single chills factor. Correlation and regression analyses showed inspiration in writers robustly predicted chills in readers, but other motivations like awe did not. This suggests inspiration can transmit physical responses unconsciously through poetry, resonating two embodied concepts of inspiration and chills.

1. Inspiration in a Writer Predicts the Chills in a Reader
Chris C. Martin, Laura A. Maruskin, & Todd M. Thrash
College of William and Mary
Introduction
Methods
Discussion
What are “the chills”?
205 undergraduates participated in this study.
The chills are a set of physical sensations—a cold chill,
a shudder down the spine, tingling sensations, and
goosebumps (piloerection)—that are triggered by a
psychologically significant cause.
At times of their choosing, each participant read 195
poems. These poems were from a prior study (Thrash,
Maruskin, Cassidy, Fryer, & Ryan, 2010), so data about
writers’ inspiration, effort, positive affect, and awe
while writing were available to us.
Within the domain of aesthetic response, the chills has
generally been assumed to be a unitary construct.
When a more diverse set of elicitors is examined, the
chills has been found to dissociate into two varieties of
experiences: “goosetingles” and “coldshivers”
(Maruskin, Thrash, & Elliot, 2012). Goosetingles
involves high levels of awe and surprise, whereas
coldshivers involves high levels of fear and disgust. In
this study, we examined aesthetic responses and
therefore expected the chills to be factorially coherent
and to represent a general bodily indicator of
emotional impact.
What was the main hypothesis?
We predicted that the chills would be elicited by
poems that were written in an inspired state, a state in
which the poet reported being strongly driven to
transmit his or her seminal idea for the poem.
Why is studying the chills important?
Showing that writers’ inspiration predicts readers’
chills is theoretically enriching for the psychology of
aesthetics. Although there are many ways to
appreciate a poem, the chills is an important criterion
variable. The reader who sees and feels a bodily
response to a poem is likely to treat this response as
compelling and incontrovertible evidence that the
poem has aesthetic impact.
After reading each poem, participants completed a
chills questionnaire (Maruskin et al., 2012) regarding
the poem they had just read. This measure has
subscales concerning goosebumps, tingling, coldness,
and shivers. Data were aggregated across readers
(Cronbach’s αs = .99).
Results
A Principal Components Analysis showed that
goosebumps, tingling, coldness, and shivers cohered as
a single chills component. We therefore analyzed an
overall chills composite.
Correlations between motivation variables in the
writer and chills in the reader are shown in the first
column of Table 1. Results of a simultaneous
regression analysis are shown in the second column.
Both analyses indicate that inspiration in a writer is a
robust predictor of chills in the reader. Other
motivations in the writer failed to predict chills in the
reader.
Predictors of the Chills
Factor
First-order
correlation
Multiple
regression
coefficient
r
β
Inspiration
.25**
.36***
Awe
.04
-.02
Positive Affect
.10
-.10
Effort
.02
-.08
The reading and enjoyment of a poem is typically
considered a conscious activity. Taking a dual process
approach, one might construe this activity as primarily
involving the conscious system because it involves the
deliberate processing of novel phrases within the
poem. However, our results indicate that when a poem
is inspired, it elicits emotions that affect the
unconscious system, prompting an involuntary bodily
reaction.
Note that inspiration itself has a bodily connection—
“inspiration” can refer to the act of breathing in—so
our results reveal a resonance between two embodied
concepts, inspiration and chills, suggesting that
inspiration has contagious physical power.
Future research is needed to verify that when
participants report they have the chills, they are
actually getting goosebumps. Goosebumps can be
measured with a boxed camera attached to the skin
surface (Benedek, Wilfling, Lukas-Wolfbauer, Katzur, &
Kaernbach, 2010).
Additional research is also needed to examine the
attributes of poems that mediate the effects of writers’
inspiration and the characteristics of readers that
moderate them.
References
Benedek, M., Wilfling, B., Lukas-Wolfbauer, R., Katzur, B., &
Kaernbach, C. (2010) Objective and continuous measurement of
piloerection. Psychophysiology, 47, 989–993. doi: 10.1111/j.14698986.2010.01003.x
Maruskin, L. A., Thrash, T. M., & Elliot, A. J. (2012). The chills as a
psychological construct: Content universe, factor structure, affective
composition, elicitors, and trait antecedents. Manuscript submitted
for publication.
Thrash, T. M., Maruskin, L. A., Cassidy, S. E., Fryer, J. W., & Ryan, R.
M. (2010). Mediating between the muse and the masses:
Inspiration and the actualization of creative ideas. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 98, 469–487. doi:
10.1037/a0017907