Vanessa Van EdwardsScience of People, Science Of People · Behavioral Researcher, Founder, Author, Harvard Instructor

The 5 Surprising Triggers Of Human Emotion You Should Know!

1 Mar 2026 · 1 min

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1:07

In this concise presentation, Vanessa Van Edwards outlines the various situations that provoke the emotion of surprise and explains why managing surprise is crucial. She identifies five primary triggers: (1) surprise linked to delight or confusion when people encounter unexpected information; (2) surprise arising from threats or unexpected pricing, where an unanticipated cost or danger elicits a startled response; (3) surprise generated by boundary‑pushing behavior and overwhelming experiences such as awe, which can leave a person cognitively dazed; (4) surprise in introverts who overshare, described as the “deer in the headlights” reaction when a question catches them off‑guard; and (5) the overarching strategy to keep surprise neutral or positive by immediately providing additional context and avoiding pushing the person toward fear. The talk emphasizes that recognizing these triggers allows communicators to steer surprise toward constructive outcomes.

Chapters

When do you see surprise? When people are surprised or delighted. But also when people are confused, they're trying to figure it out. So they're like, oh, I never thought about it that way. Because they're literally trying to take it in. You'll also sometimes see surprise around threats. This often happens when a threat comes unexpectedly. You can see surprise around pricing. You share a price that someone really wasn't expecting. They'll be like, oh, wow. Because it was not a price that they were expecting. You'll also sometimes see a surprise around pushing boundaries. If someone feels like you're getting too emotionally or physically assertive, back it up. You also sometimes see surprise around overwhelm. Awe and overwhelm are very similar emotions, Right? In awe, we're taking it all in. We're so overwhelmed cognitively that we can't even process. And so we have this sort of bewildered, dazed look. And this is the key. We see surprise and we want it to go positive or we want it to go neutral. We don't want it to turn into negative. The moment you see surprise, you want to make sure you're giving more information. And we also can have it, of course, around introverts who overshare. Sometimes they get stuck in what I call deer in the headlights. You ask someone a question like, so tell me your biggest fear. Oh, their brain has shut down because they were not expecting that question at all. Your big goal is to not push them into fear.