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Key points
- Violations of expectations can be negative or positive.
- Surprise is an emotion that is physiologically felt similarly across cultures.
- People remember the unexpected more than the expected.
What things do you remember? Do you remember everything about the last time you drove in a car, did laundry, or went grocery shopping? Probably not, because normal and expected experiences become routine. You can imagine how burdensome it would be to divert a great amount of mental effort for each of these routine tasks.
Humans create a schema from our past experiences, a framework for a particular situation, that with little mental effort helps organize perceptual information before responding (Dulebohn et al., 2012; Janssen & Van Yperen, 2004; Yuan & Woodman, 2010). These mental shortcuts are useful for familiar situations enabling more cognitive effort into more complex, unexpected, or less familiar tasks (Cialdini, 2006). Those experiences that are not within our auto-thinking are often remembered more, such as a political "October surprise."
Expectancy-Violations Theory
Burgoon’s (1978) development of expectancy-violations theory still helps us understand why we remember surprises more. Her experiment involved participants walking into a room and moving their chair to whatever distance they felt comfortable to communicate with a researcher who was already seated, which established their expected normal distance. However, in some conditions, the researcher moved their chair either closer or farther away from the participant—thus, a violation of the participant’s proximity expectations. If the participants perceived the violation favorably, then it was labeled a positive violation of expectations. If perceived unfavorably, then it was a negative violation of expectations.
Expectancy-violations theory highlights the powerful impact that expectations have with our memory. When our expectations are violated, we avert attention to more intensely evaluate the situation (Dulebohn et al., 2012; Janssen & Van Yperen, 2004; Lannutti et al., 2001; Yuan & Woodman, 2010). Often what is not expected surprises us. Surprise is a universal emotion (Eckman, 1992). More recently, researchers have found that the emotion of surprise is physiologically similarly felt in the body independently of cultures (Volynets et al., 2020). Therefore, something unexpected is a more intense emotional experience for everyone (Afifi & Burgoon, 2000; Dulebohn et al., 2012; Gorges & Kandler, 2012). With more attention, cognitive processing, and emotional intensity occurring during a surprising experience, that experience becomes more memorable (Park, 2010).
Political "October Surprise" Examples
A political October surprise is unexpected and likely remembered more than expected events according to expectancy-violations theory. Here are several memorable political October surprises. Even if you have not previously known about these October surprises, you will probably remember them after this post because they were unexpected.
An infamous October surprise occurred October 10, 2000, during a debate between then-Governor Bush and Vice President Al Gore. Bush was presenting to the audience when Gore surprisingly walked up closely to the side of Bush and asked him a question. This feat was unexpected and remembered because, similar to Burgoon’s (1978) experiment, a person’s expected normal space was violated. Here is the video.
Another example is when FBI Director James Comey sent a letter to Congress on October 28, 2016, that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails saved on a secret server would be investigated again. This was days before the presidential election.
A more lighthearted ‘October Surprise’ came Oct. 7, 2020, when Vice President Pence was debating Senator Kamala Harris. Many refer to D.C. politics as a swamp; literally, a pesky fly kept landing on top of Pence’s head. This was unexpected, memorable, and distracted from what he was saying. Here is the video.
The New York Post published an October surprise on October 14, 2020, about Hunter Biden’s emails involving foreign business dealings and possible involvement of his father, Vice President Joe Biden. Very few media outlets would publish information about Hunter Biden’s laptop and its emails. Fifty-one people consisting of government intelligence experts and directors signed an open letter stating they suspected that this New York Post article was Russian misinformation. Also, shortly after the laptop story broke, Twitter censored what information could be shared about the laptop story. (Norton, 2022). Polls following the election indicated that the majority of Americans eventually believed the Hunter Biden laptop story was factual. If known prior to the election, some voters likely would have changed their vote from Vice President Biden to President Trump (Golding, 2022). The lesson learned is that an October surprise needs time to eventually reach potential voters.
Conclusion
First and foremost, a political October surprise needs to be unexpected news. Consistent with expectancy-violations theory and the subsequent emotion of surprise, this news will be remembered more and add emotional intensity. Violations of expectations, such as surprising news, can be positive or negative. A politician can benefit from news that is unexpected and positive about themselves or unexpected negative news against their opponent. Timing is important. Early October seems to be the ideal time for surprising information to have enough time in the media to disseminate to potential voters and also keep the emotional momentum that it creates in the election. Humans tend to have consistent behaviors (Cialdini, 2006). Therefore, a positive October surprise for a politician or a negative one against their opponent can influence potential voters to vote consistently with their current emotional state.
References
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Norton, T. (2022, December 15). Fact Check: Did Ex-Intel Officials Call Hunter Biden Laptop Disinformation? Newsweek.
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