Surprise is intimately connected to the idea of acting in accordance with a set of rules. When the rules of reality generating events of daily life separate from the rule-of-thumb expectations, surprise is the outcome. Surprise represents the difference between expectations and reality, the gap between our assumptions and expectations about worldly events and the way that those events actually turn out.[1] This gap can be deemed an important foundation on which new findings are based since surprises can make people aware of their own ignorance. The acknowledgement of ignorance, in turn, can mean a window to new knowledge.[2]
Surprise can also occur due to a violation of expectancies. In the specific case of interpersonal communication, the Expectancy Violation Theory (EVT) says that three factors influence a person's expectations: interactant variables, environmental variables, and variables related to the nature of the interaction or interaction variables.[3]
Interactant variables involve traits of the persons involved in the communication and in this instance the communication leading to surprise, including: race, sex, socio-economic status, age, and appearance.[3]
Environmental variables that effect the communication of surprise include: proxemics, chronemics, and the nature of the surroundings of the interaction.[3]
Interaction variables that influence surprise include: social norms, cultural norms, physiological influences, biological influences and unique individual behavioral patterns.[3]
Surprise may occur due to a violation of one, two, or a combination of all three factors.
Surprise does not always have to have a negative valence. EVT proposes that expectancy's will influence the outcome of the communication as a confirmation, behaviors within the expected range, or violation, behaviors outside the expected range.[3] EVT also postulates that positive interactions will increase the level of attraction of the violator, where as negative violations decrease the attraction.[4] Positive violations would then cause positive surprise, such as a surprise birthday party, and negative violations would cause negative surprise, such as a parking ticket. Positive violations of surprise may enhance credibility, power, attraction, and persuasiveness, where as negative violations of surprise may reduce credibility, power, attraction, and persuasiveness.[3]
