Why and when do we like to be surprised?

Even the most carefree of us cannot live without thinking about what tomorrow will bring. And those who want to achieve something set goals and make plans. Planning helps to “tame” the future: it’s like casting a line and waiting for the fish to bite on it. Some fish peck at the crumb, others – at the worm. The better the preparation, the richer the catch.

It is difficult to find cons of planning. The more we calculate the future and prepare for it, the stronger the feeling of control over it. But somewhere in us sits the feeling that surprises are needed for the fullness of life. We love birthday surprises, unscheduled encounters, chance finds, and we enjoy being able to get away from the routine and let fate make the decisions for us. What is the value of these unwritten places in the life score?

The power of emotions

You have probably noticed that when something unexpected happens, the senses are sharpened and attention is focused on what caused surprise. This knowledge is used, for example, by journalists when they create headlines like “Aristotle, Cheburashka, Zuckerberg: what dolls do the children of the elite play with.” The combination of what is usually not combined attracts us. “Shock is our brain’s way of signaling unusual information, a disruption in the way things are going,” says science evangelist Tanya Luna, author of a book on surprises. “You’re wrong, and your brain is telling you so.”

The strong nervous excitement that occurs in the brain has a completely logical explanation: among our ancestors, those who could quickly respond to a change in the environment survived better. A sharp sound, a sudden rise in temperature, a strange smell – all this could turn into trouble. Who did not hide, did not have time to recognize the danger, did not leave offspring. Therefore, when something catches you by surprise, the brain mobilizes resources, making you feel reality more sharply, and we like it. Not without reason, years later, we like to remember childhood adventures: how traffic jams were knocked out and parents lit candles in a de-energized apartment, how we pushed a car stuck in the snow with them and how we ran away from hooligans.

Another angle of view

You ordered your favorite drink in a cafe, but it was not on the menu. You are annoyed but agree to try another one. And suddenly, taking a sip, you understand: it’s delicious! Why have you never tried it before? Surprises provide an opportunity to enrich the experience, and in a way that we might not choose on our own. “The paradox is that we prefer to be the masters of our own destiny and make our own choices, but often the events that we did not choose turn out to be the most useful for us,” notes Tanya Luna. “This is one of the reasons why we get so many impressions as children – we are eager to study what is happening around us, but are not yet able to shape our environment.”

Through surprise, we can not only discover unknown sides of ourselves, but also find a solution to a particularly difficult problem. Let us recall the stories of geniuses who painfully searched for a suitable “brick” in the foundation of their theory and found it only when something unforeseen happened to them. In particular, parables and Buddhist koans (riddles that Zen masters offer students) are built on this – the effect of surprise can push a person to realize something. It is no coincidence that such a method of work as coaching learned a lot from Eastern practices: its creators were looking for a way to get the client out of the impasse, to teach him to see the hidden sides. Psychologists call this quality serendipity – readiness to perceive what is out of the usual picture of the world.

Variable Reinforcement

And yet, a life full of surprises will feed our anxiety rather than give joy. On the other hand, the constant “even burning” that Stolz, one of the heroes of the novel “Oblomov” so appreciated, evokes associations with the work of the mechanism. But we are people! We like to make mistakes a little, to accept a challenge, to overcome obstacles. It is this alternation of expected victories and unexpected failures that fuels interest in life. Half a century ago, psychologists found an explanation for this.

American psychologist Burres Skinner conducted experiments with rats. One had to press the pedal and got food for it. First, food was given for each click, then every other time, then even less often. Soon the rat lost interest in the button. Another for the same action food was delivered unexpectedly and unpredictably. Sometimes the rat got food for pressing the button, sometimes not. The rat did not know which press would be lucky, and its reflex lasted a very long time. Each time she hoped to get something and continued to press the pedal.

The same was observed with pigeons, but they were immediately offered two buttons. Pressing the first one was guaranteed to bring food, the second one acted according to the principle of “how lucky”. Having figured out what was happening, the pigeons more often pressed not on the win-win button, but on the surprise button. Apparently, so the grain seemed more valuable to them.

We love surprises because we need a shake-up. Moreover, these do not have to be impulsive actions: it is precisely controlled risks that we enjoy the most. Tanya Luna believes that surprises can and should be directed by yourself: let it be a fun adventure, a trip to nature, a trip to an unusual restaurant … “The main thing here is not the strength of the shock, but regularity,” she says. “The surprise starts working the moment we know it’s coming and we’re already fantasizing about it.”