Surprise

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Abstract

Surprise is the mental reaction to unexpectedness. Surprise is subjectively experienced as a characteristic feeling and may manifest itself in a variety of behaviors and physiological changes. It is argued that underlying these phenomena is an evolved mechanism whose function is to (1) detect discrepancies between cognitive schemas and newly acquired information, and (2) if they are detected, to instigate processes that enable the short- and long-term adaptation to them. Surprise must be distinguished from the startle reaction elicited by sudden, intense sensory input; as well as from the orienting reaction to novel or significant stimuli. Although the status of surprise as an emotion is controversial, surprise needs to be considered in theories of emotion even if it is not regarded as an emotion itself.

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Cited by (25)

  • On the physiology of interruption after unexpectedness

    2021, Biological Psychology
    Citation Excerpt :

    Moreover, given that it is primarily the unexpectedness that drives surprise irrespective of the valence of the surprising outcome, these responses should occur for all types of surprises, including positive ones. Unexpectedness is indeed assumed to trigger an orienting response (e.g., Reisenzein et al., 2012, 2017), but only limited work has tested the link between surprise and reduced heart rate directly (see Niepel, 2001). Some studies have tested responses to rare events (i.e., infrequent stimuli, such as in oddball studies), but it is important to note that rarity is not the same as surprise (for a more elaborate discussion on this, see Horstmann, 2015).

  • Shades of surprise: Assessing surprise as a function of degree of deviance and expectation constraints

    2019, Cognition
    Citation Excerpt :

    This perspective is also supported by findings on the meaning maintenance model (e.g., Heine, Proulx, & Vohs, 2006; Proulx & Heine, 2008; Proulx, Heine, & Vohs, 2010; Proulx, Inzlicht, & Harmon-Jones, 2012) implying that expectancy violations trigger the motivation to restore a sense of meaning. As different as these accounts appear, they share the notion that surprise is (among other things) triggered by an event that deviates from what was expected – and this means regardless of whether it was expected a-priori, post-hoc, implicitly, explicitly, actively or passively (see Lorini & Castelfranchi, 2007; Macedo & Cardoso, 2017; Ortony & Partridge, 1987), or not expected at all (for a similar discussion, see Reisenzein et al., 2012) – or from what was schematically available in a given situation. Logically, this deviation should be continuous, that is, events might vary in the degree to which they deviate from expectation or situation-related schema activations.

  • The role of surprise: Understanding overreaction and underreaction to unanticipated events using in-play soccer betting market

    2014, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization
    Citation Excerpt :

    Surprise is a universal human emotion (Maguire et al., 2011; Plutchik, 1980). By definition, surprise is a peculiar state of mind, often of brief duration, elicited by unexpected events of all kinds, i.e., events that disconfirm, contradict, or violate an expectation or belief (Reisenzein et al., 2012; Teigen and Keren, 2003). Formally, from the perspective of schema theory in psychology, surprising events are those that are incongruent with currently activated schema, thereby activating a “schema-discrepancy detector” which results in key behavioral changes (Meyer et al., 1997; Reisenzein et al., 2012).

  • Facial expressions in response to a highly surprising event exceeding the field of vision: A test of Darwin's theory of surprise

    2012, Evolution and Human Behavior
    Citation Excerpt :

    Confusion is another frequently reported reaction to surprising events, especially if sense-making processes fail (e.g., Reisenzein et al., 2006; Schützwohl & Krefting, 2001). Startle and irritation may also occur in some surprising situations (Reisenzein et al., 2012). Following Reisenzein et al. (2006), a present/absent coding scheme with four categories was used to code facial expressions.

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Rainer Reisenzein is professor of General Psychology at the University of Greifswald, Germany. His research focuses on the psychology of emotions, where he investigates a variety of theoretical and empirical questions, including the cognitive causes of emotion, emotional experience, the facial expression of emotion, and the psychology of surprise. He was previously a member of Wulf-Uwe Meyer's research group on the psychology of surprise. His most recent work concerns the formulation of a computational model of the belief-desire theory of emotion, which incorporates several central ideas from the earlier model of surprise developed by Meyer and coworkers. Rainer Reisenzein is coauthor, together with Wulf-Uwe Meyer and Achim Schützwohl, of a German three-volume text book on the psychology of emotions. For more information, see http://www.phil.uni-greifswald.de/sozial/psychologie/lehrstuehle/allgemeine-psychologie-ii.html.

Wulf-Uwe Meyer is professor Emeritus of General Psychology at the University of Bielefeld, Germany. His research area is the psychology of motivation and emotion. Initially, his research focused on the psychology of achievement motivation from an attribution theory perspective, specifically the role played by the self-concept of ability. Later research investigated apparently paradoxical effects of praise and blame. In the 1990s, Wulf-Uwe started a research program on surprise as an emotion, and proposed an integrative model of surprise from a schema-theory perspective. Together with Achim Schützwohl and Rainer Reisenzein as coauthors, Meyer has written a three-volume German text book on the psychology of emotions.

Michael Niepel holds a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Bielefeld, Germany. He was for several years a member of the research group of W.-U. Meyer on surprise, and has conducted his Ph.D. research on the relation of surprise to the physiological orienting reaction. He is author or coauthor of several journal articles and book chapters on surprise. Currently, Michael Niepel is a psychological consultant and freelance scientific writer in Bielefeld.

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