Scientists: sensitivity to art may be 'in the blood'

Some people get goosebumps and shivers from music, poetry or a powerful painting, while others feel at most "well, it's beautiful". A new study by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics (MPI) shows: it's not just about upbringing and experience - part of the answer may be in the genes.

The team analysed data from a large Dutch project called Lifelines: more than 15,500 participants had both answers about their emotional reactions to art and genetic information. The researchers focused on so-called "aesthetic goosebumps " - brief peaks of pleasure that can be accompanied by "goose bumps" or chills while listening to music, reading poetry or watching visual art.

The main finding: about 30 per cent of the variation in how often people experience these goosebumps is due to family factors. About a quarter of this "family share" is explained by common genetic variants (i.e., those that occur frequently in the population).

The scientists also noticed two important things:

• some of the genetic influences are common to music, poetry and visual art - and are related to broader traits, such as openness to new experiences and general engagement with the arts;

• but there are also effects that are not the same between art forms, i.e. 'goosebumps from music' and 'goosebumps from poetry' may partly rely on different biological mechanisms.

The authors emphasise: genetics doesn't "solve everything" - the environment (what a person has listened to, read, where they grew up, what is accepted in the environment) also influences the reaction. But the results provide another way to understand why people may feel differently about the same world.