Factors affecting "expectations of the unexpected": The impact of controllability & valence on unexpected outcomes

Do people have specific "expectations about the unexpected" when they think about the future? Recent work supports a "negativity bias", that people expect future events to be disrupted by unexpected negative outcomes. However, when the current situation is negative, they report more positive unexpected outcomes (e.g., negative experiences lead many to imagine a future of unexpected positive outcomes). The present study (N = 219 Prolific.co participants; with a pre-test of N = 64) explored whether people also show an "uncontrollability bias"; best-laid plans are often disrupted by uncontrollable events. People thought of unexpected outcomes for 8 everyday scenarios, matched on valence and controllability, generating a total of 1752 distinct responses. Participants mainly report negative-uncontrollable unexpected events (34%). However, in contrast to prior work (i) negatively-valenced scenarios elicit more controllable unexpected outcomes, and (ii) uncontrollable scenarios elicit more positive unexpected outcomes. The implications of these results for everyday cognition and decision making are discussed.