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Surprise

About: Surprise is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 4371 publications have been published within this topic receiving 99386 citations.


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ReportDOI
01 Apr 1985
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a psychological model of updating that assumes equal attention is given to all information, based on an anchoring-and-adjustment process that incorporates a contrast or surprise effect.
Abstract: : Although the updating of beliefs is a central concern in many fields, empirical research has produced complex and conflicting results. We first present a psychological model of updating that assumes equal attention is given to all information. The model is based on an anchoring-and-adjustment process that incorporates a contrast or surprise effect; in particular, the larger the current opinion, the more it is discounted by negative evidence and the less it is increased by positive evidence. The model predicts strong recency effects for conflicting evidence and, no order effects for consistent evidence. These predictions are contrasted with those of alternative models and tested in a series of six experiments involving the evaluation of written scenarios containing varying amounts and types of information. Thereafter, we generalize the model to include the effects of differential attention and show the conditions under which attention decrement can lead to primacy rather than recency. Specifically, under attention decrement, people with strong prior beliefs are more prone to primacy than those with weak priors. We then discuss our theoretical framework and results with respect to procedural variables that can affect judgment, the optimal inattention problem, comparisons with alternative models of updating (e.g., Bayesian models), and limitations and extensions of the present approach. (Author)

33 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors empirically examined how suspense and surprise affect the demand for entertainment and found that surprise is more important in this regard than suspense, and both factors matter more during a match's later moments.
Abstract: This paper empirically examines how suspense and surprise affect the demand for entertainment. We use a tennis tournament, the Wimbledon Championships, as a natural laboratory. This setting allows us to both operationalize suspense and surprise by using the audience's beliefs regarding the outcome of the match and observe the demand for live entertainment using TV audience figures. Our match fixed effects estimates of 8,563 minute-by-minute observations from 80 men's singles matches between 2009 and 2014 show that both suspense and surprise are drivers of media entertainment demand. In general, surprise seems to be more important in this regard than suspense, and both factors matter more during a match's later moments. We discuss important implications for the design of entertainment content to maximize entertainment demand.

33 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors decompose the cross-sectional variability in stock market reactions to management earnings forecasts into the portions attributable to the forecast surprise and the earnings surprise, and find that the market reaction is more associated with forecast surprise than with earnings surprise.
Abstract: When corporate management issues an earnings forecast there are potentially two surprises. One potential surprise is that a forecast was issued and the other is the surprise in the earnings forecast. Accordingly, the observed stock market reaction to management earnings forecasts may be due to one or the other, or both. This study decomposes the cross-sectional variability in stock market reactions to management earnings forecasts into the portions attributable to the forecast surprise and the earnings surprise. The results indicate that the market's reaction is a function of both the earnings surprise and the forecast surprise. However, the market reaction is more associated with forecast surprise than with the earnings surprise. This suggests that results in previous studies on the market reactions to management earnings forecasts may need to be reconsidered.

33 citations

Book ChapterDOI
01 Jan 2007
TL;DR: A mathematician (albeit in the guise of a mathematics educator) writing about vagueness is in contrast with that expressed in a contemporary pamphlet issued by the Association of Teachers of Mathematics, whose authors argued that: Because it is a tolerant medium, everyday language is necessarily ambiguous.
Abstract: It may come as something of a surprise to find a mathematician (albeit in the guise of a mathematics educator) writing about vagueness, since it is commonly supposed that precision is the hallmark of mathematics. Such a point of view is reflected in the landmark 1982 Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Teaching of Mathematics in Schools (the Cockcroft Report), which asserted that, ‘mathematics provides a means of communication which is powerful, concise and unambiguous’ (Department of Education and Science 1982, p. 1), and proposed the communicative power of mathematics as a ‘principal reason’ for teaching it. There was refreshing novelty in such a claim, which seemed to be justifying the place of mathematics in the curriculum in much the same way that one might justify the learning of a foreign language, and it did much to promote and sustain interest in the place of language in the teaching and learning of mathematics. Such a view of mathematics is in contrast, however, with that expressed in a contemporary pamphlet issued by the Association of Teachers of Mathematics (ATM 1980, pp. 17–18), whose authors argued that: Because it is a tolerant medium, everyday language is necessarily ambiguous. /…/ Now, mathematising is also a form of action in the world. And its expressions, however carefully defined, have to retain a fundamental tolerance /…/ Because it is a tolerant medium, mathematics is also necessarily an ambiguous one.

33 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigated the impact that exposure to counter-stereotypes has on emotional reactions to outgroups and found that counterstereotype exposure produced feelings of surprise which, in turn, elicited a cognitive process of expectancy violation which resulted in attenuated stereotyped emotions and an enhanced use of uniquely human characteristics to describe the outgroup.

33 citations


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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
2023675
20221,546
2021216
2020237
2019239
2018226