Surprise! Why the Unexpected Feels Good, and Why It's Good For Us

On this day of pranks and tomfoolery, let's focus on the more visceral piece of April 1st: Surprises.

What happens to us psychologically and physiologically when a surprise is being sprung on us? We asked Tania Luna, the co-author of "Surprise: Embrace the Unpredictable and Engineer the Unexpected." Luna researches surprises, has given TED talks on surprises, and co-founded Surprise Industries. Today she weighs in on the science of surprises.

“Shock is part of the surprise spectrum—it’s just one kind of surprise,” says Luna. “But surprise is actually categorized as something unexpected or misexpected. It’s anytime that you were wrong and your brain tells you about it.”

When people are surprised by something or someone, Luna says that the human brain goes through the “surprise sequence.”

“It’s a strong neuro alert that tells us that something is important about this moment and we have to pay attention,” she says. “Our cognitive resources are basically hijacked and pulled into the moment. That’s one of the things that’s really uncomfortable for some people, but also exciting for some people because your attention is completely in the moment.”

Being surprised actually causes humans to physically freeze for 1/25th of a second. After humans freeze, surprises usually trigger something in the brain that Luna calls “find”—it’s a moment that causes humans to generate extreme curiosity in an attempt to figure out what is happening during a surprise.

“The next thing is shift,” she says. “If the surprise is something that forces you to change your perspective then you have to change the way you’ve been looking at things. If I wasn’t expecting you to surprise me or give me a gift, and now I’ve just gotten this pleasant experience, I have to change the way I think about you and maybe even our whole relationship.”

When we're surprised, for better or for worse, our emotions intensify up to 400 percent. If we’re surprised with something positive, we’ll feel more intense feelings of happiness or joy than we normally would had absent the surprise. Similarly, if we’re surprised by something negative, our feelings of anger, despair or unhappiness will also intensify because of the surprise.

“It’s kind of like a cognitive statistics game,” says Luna. “The more you expect it, the less you’re surprised. The less you expect something, the more you’re surprised.”

Luna’s business, Surprise Industries, is designed to help people experience surprises more often in their lives. Customers can sign up to have surprise adventures or activities, have surprise gifts sent to their homes, or sign up for a kit that can help people surprise family members and loved ones. Luna’s company also trains individuals in the science of surprises.

“I think about surprise in two perspectives: Embracing it and engineering it,” she says. “You have to train your brain to be more comfortable accepting surprise, and by that I also mean surprise readiness—being comfortable with uncertainty, ambiguity and change. Especially these days, that’s an incredibly important skill.”

In our multi-screen world, Luna also says that it’s also important for people to learn how to orchestrate or engineer surprises.

“It’s how you get peoples attention and delight them so you get them curious and excited about what you have to offer,” she says.

Though Luna is currently in the surprise business, it wasn’t always that way. Before she started her company, she says that she actually hated surprises.

“I hated being surprised—I loved surprising others, but I hated being surprised myself,” she says. “[I hated] the feeling of loss of control and the feeling of vulnerability. As a kid, I had experienced a lot of change and my coping mechanism was to say, ‘I’m in charge. I control everything. Nobody controls me and I can control the world around me.’ I was protecting myself from negative surprises. But what I’ve learned is that I was also keeping out joy, wonder, and emotional intensity.”