Infrastructure Resilience to Surprise

The risk analysis community has long struggled with effectively addressing surprising events, primarily because the concept of surprise remains inadequately defined in the literature. Four common misconceptions about surprise continue to obstruct progress: (1) Surprise is a result of ignorance or lack of knowledge, (2) better predictions can help avoid surprise, (3) surprises can be eliminated, and (4) surprises are inherently adverse events that must be prevented. These misconceptions frame surprise as a problem of missing information, leading to an overemphasis on closing knowledge gaps rather than preparing for inevitable, unexpected disruptions. In this work, we offer a critical examination of surprise in the context of infrastructure resilience. We discuss the misconceptions surrounding surprise and propose a corrective framework that introduces surprise as an event that violates expectations followed by a series of cognitive reactions that lead to one of two intrinsic responses—either an adaptive response that involves updating the belief system through learning or a maladaptive (shock) response that reinforces outdated mental models and leaves the system vulnerable to future disruptions. We argue that understanding these responses is essential for improving the resilience of infrastructure systems, and we propose training programs to strengthen the adaptive capacities of infrastructure managers to shift the focus from attempting to eliminate surprise to embracing it as an opportunity for learning and adaptation.