Violation Severity
Violation severity refers to both the unexpectedness of the violation and the strength with which the expectations were held. The unexpected nature of the violation was at the heart of Tolman’s (1932) and Elliot-Smith’s (1928) description of disruption. The unexpected nature of the violation is central to GDT, because it is the unanticipated occurrence that is particularly threatening to the person’s survival. Goal expectancy violations do not only impair the person’s goal capabilities, but the person’s world is revealed to be less predictable than believed. As noted by Lewin, “Being in unstructured surroundings leads to uncertainty of behavior because it is not clear whether a certain action will lead to or away from the goal” (p. 255). The unexpected nature of the violation will influence the extent to which the person will feel that their world is unpredictable, unstable, uncertain, and most importantly, threatening (e.g., Mendes et al., 2007). As noted by Clary and Tesser (1983), “It may be that unexpected events represent a challenge to one’s prior ideas, and explanatory activity is undertaken as a means of reestablishing a sense of control” (p. 617). Violation strength refers to the level of confidence the person had in the expectation that was violation. Borrowing from the attitude domain (Crano & Prislin, 2008; Petty & Krosnick, 1995), all expectancy violations are not equally predictive of whether a disruption will occur. Expectations that are held with high certainty (Bizer, Larsen, & Petty, 2011), that are easily accessible (see Fazio, 1995), that are non-ambivalent, or non-conflicting (Henderson, de Liver, & Gollwitzer, 2008), and that are based on knowledge and experience (Prislin, 1996) will be most likely to cause a disruption if violated.