THE ROLE OF SURPRISE IN THE ATTRIBUTION PROCESS

We report five studies which compared two theories linking surprise to causal attribution. According to the attributional model, surprise is frequently caused by luck attributions, whereas according to the expe ctancy-disconfirmation model, surprise is caused by expectancy disconf irmation and stimulates causal thinking. Studies 1 to 3 focused on the question of whether surprise is caused by luck attributions or by une xpectedness. In Studies 1 and 2, subjects had to recall success or fai lure experiences characterised by a particular attribution (Study 1) o r by low versus high suprisingness (Study 2), whereas in Study 3, unex pectedness and luck versus skill attributions were independently manip ulated within a realistic setting. The main dependent variables were u nexpectedness (Studies 1 and 2), degree of surprise (Studies 1 and 3), and causal attributions (Study 2). The results strongly suggest that surprise is caused by expectancy disconfirmation, whereas luck attribu tions are neither sufficient nor necessary for surprise. Studies 4 and 5 addressed the question of whether surprise stimulates attributional thinking, again using a remembered-incidents technique. The findings of the previous studies were replicated, and it was confirmed that sur prising outcomes elicit more attributional search than unsurprising on es. Additional results from Study 5 suggest that causal thinking is al so stimulated by outcomes that are both negative and important.