Like if someone sneaks up on you, or there’s a sudden loud sound. I would guess there’s a sudden surge of adrenaline, but why do we make sudden movements like jumping?
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This is your fight or flight instinct kicking in.
Go back a few thousand years and surprises generally meant bad things. Something had managed to sneak up on you without you realising, and is in a position of power over you – such as the predator sneaking up on you because you looked like a tasty meal.
To respond to this we evolved a fight or flight instinct. When something surprises us, we subconsciously and instantly react to this to try and keep ourselves safe. So when you get scared and jump, this is the ‘flight’ response kicking in and causing you to move away from the danger.
The alternative is the ‘fight’ response, which is when someone lashes out instead and instinctively tries to get in the first hit and take advantage over the potential attacker.
Generally as humans we don’t spend quite so much time out in the wilderness being hunted by sabertooth tigers as we did thousands of years ago, but we still have a lot of the same instincts to cause funny reactions when something harmless surprises you instead.
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