Surprise (emotion)

Psychology
- Surprise (emotion)

Surprise is a rapid and fleeting mental and physiological state. It is linked to the startle response experienced by both animals and humans as a result of an unexpected event.

Surprise can have any valence. That is, it can be pleasant/positive, unpleasant/negative, or neutral/moderate. Surprise can occur in varying levels of intensity ranging from very surprised, which may induce the fight-or-flight response, or slightly surprised, which elicits a less intense response to the stimulus.

Surprise is included as a primary or basic emotion in the taxonomies of Carroll Izard and Paul Ekman. According to these perspectives, surprise is evolutionarily adaptive, and also innate and universal across human cultures.

Causes

Surprise is closely linked to the idea of acting according to a set of rules. When the rules governing daily life events diverge from rule-of-thumb expectations, surprise occurs. Surprise reflects the difference between expectations and reality, highlighting the gap between our assumptions about the world and how events actually unfold. This gap can be regarded as an important foundation for new discoveries, as surprises can heighten awareness of our own ignorance. The recognition of ignorance, in turn, can open a pathway to new knowledge.

Surprise can also arise from a violation of expectations. In the specific context of interpersonal communication, the Expectancy Violation Theory (EVT) posits that three factors shape a person's expectations: interactant variables, environmental variables, and factors related to the nature of the interaction.

Interactant variables involve traits of the individuals engaged in communication, particularly in this instance where the communication leads to surprise. These traits include sex, socio-economic status, age, race, and appearance.
Environmental variables that effect the communication of surprise include: proxemics, chronemics, and the nature of the surroundings of the interaction.
Interaction variables that influence surprise include: social norms, cultural norms, physiological influences, biological influences and unique individual behavioral patterns.

Surprise may occur due to a violation of one, two, or a combination of all three factors.

Surprise does not always have to carry a negative valence. EVT proposes that expectancies will influence the outcome of communication as confirmation, behaviors within the expected range, or violation, behaviors outside the expected range. EVT also posits that positive interactions will increase the attraction to the violator, whereas negative violations decrease it. Positive violations would then cause positive surprise, such as a surprise birthday party, while negative violations would lead to negative surprise, such as a parking ticket. Positive violations may enhance credibility, power, attraction, and persuasiveness, whereas negative violations may diminish them.

Physiological responses

The physiological response of surprise falls under the category of the startle response. The main function of surprise, or the startle response, is to interrupt an ongoing action and reorient attention to a new, possibly significant event. There is an automatic redirection of focus to the new stimuli, and for a brief moment, this causes tenseness in the muscles, especially the neck muscles. Studies show that this response happens extremely fast, with information (in this case, a loud noise) reaching the pons within 3 to 8 ms, and the full startle reflex occurring in less than two-tenths of a second.

If the startle response is strongly elicited through surprise, it will trigger the fight-or-flight response, which is a perceived harmful event, attack, or threat to survival. This response causes a release of adrenaline for a boost of energy, serving as a means to escape or fight. Generally, this response has a negative valence in relation to surprise.

Surprise has one core appraisal- appraising something as new and unexpected- but new appraisals can shift the experience of surprise to another state. Appraising an event as new predicts surprise, but the appraisal of the coping mechanism predicts responses beyond surprise, such as confusion or interest.

Non-verbal responses

Surprise is expressed in the face by the following features:

Eyebrows that are raised so they become curved and high.
Horizontal wrinkles across the forehead.
Open eyelids: the upper lid is raised and the lower lid is drawn down, often exposing the white sclera above and below the iris.
Pupil dilation, mydriasis or pupil constriction miosis
Dropped jaw so that the lips and teeth are parted, with no tension around the mouth.

Spontaneous, involuntary surprise is often expressed for only a fraction of a second. It may be followed immediately by the emotion of fear, joy or confusion. The intensity of the surprise is associated with how much the jaw drops, but the mouth may not open at all in some cases. The raising of the eyebrows, at least momentarily, is the most distinctive and predictable sign of surprise.

Despite the facial feedback hypothesis (that facial display is necessary in the experience of emotion or a major determinant of feelings), research has shown a strong lack of connection between the facial display of surprise and the actual experience of surprise in some cases. This suggests that there are variations in the expression of surprise. It has been suggested that surprise is an envelope term for both the startle response and disbelief. More recent research shows that raising the eyebrows does provide facial feedback to disbelief but not to the startle.

Widening (dilation) of the pupils is a non-verbal response to surprise.
Pupil dilation and constriction can determine the valence of surprise from the action to the reaction of the individual. Positive valence to surprise is shown through a dilation or expansion of the pupil, where as negative valence in surprise is associated with pupil constriction. But, newer studies show pupil dilation for negative as well as positive stimuli, indicating a general autonomous arousal associated with pupil dilation and not affective valence.

Non-verbal responses to surprise can also be affected by voice inflection, distance, time, environment, volume, rate, quality, pitch, speaking style, and even the level of eye contact made by an individual trying to cause a surprise. These non-verbal cues help to define whether the perceived surprise will have a positive or negative valence and to what degree the surprise will be induced by the individual.

Verbal responses

Linguistics may play a role in formulating surprise. The Language Expectancy Theory (LET) states that people develop norms and expectations concerning the appropriate usage of a language in a given situation. When these norms or expectations of verbal language are violated, surprise may occur. The EVT model supports the idea that expectations can be violated verbally, and this violation may cause surprise within the individual. Expectations of verbal language that may lead to surprise can include, but are not limited to, expletives, shouts, screams, and gasps.

The aforementioned expectations of verbal language are more closely associated with negative expectations of surprise, but positive surprise can also occur through verbal interaction. A positive violation of expectations that could result in a pleasant surprise may include a low-credibility source making a persuasive argument, which leads to a change in beliefs or emotions, thus enhancing the speaker's credibility. The move from a low-credibility source to a high-credibility source can elicit a positive surprise among individuals. The act of being persuaded by said speaker can also elicit a positive surprise, as an individual may have perceived the speaker as having too low a credibility to elicit change, and the change in beliefs or emotions then causes surprise.

See also [ Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions ]

Emotions