When is the unfamiliar the uncanny? Meaning affirmation after exposure to absurdist literature, humor, and art
- PMID: 20445024
- DOI: 10.1177/0146167210369896
When is the unfamiliar the uncanny? Meaning affirmation after exposure to absurdist literature, humor, and art
Abstract
The meaning maintenance model asserts that following a meaning threat, people will affirm any meaning frameworks that are available. Three experiments tested (a) whether people affirm alternative meaning frameworks after reading absurdist literature, (b) what role expectations play in determining whether absurdities are threatening, and (c) whether people have a heightened need for meaning following exposure to absurdist art. In Study 1, participants who read an absurd Kafka parable affirmed an alternative meaning framework more than did those who read a meaningful parable. In Study 2, participants who read an absurd Monty Python parody engaged in compensatory affirmation efforts only if they were led to expect a conventional story. In Study 3, participants who were exposed to absurdist art or reminders of their mortality, compared to participants exposed to representational or abstract art, reported higher scores on the Personal Need for Structure scale, suggesting that they experienced a heightened need for meaning.
Similar articles
-
Connections from Kafka: exposure to meaning threats improves implicit learning of an artificial grammar.Psychol Sci. 2009 Sep;20(9):1125-31. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02414.x. Epub 2009 Jul 28. Psychol Sci. 2009. PMID: 19656338
-
The case of the transmogrifying experimenter: affirmation of a moral schema following implicit change detection.Psychol Sci. 2008 Dec;19(12):1294-300. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02238.x. Psychol Sci. 2008. PMID: 19121140
-
The dynamics of death and meaning: the effects of death-relevant cognitions and personal need for structure on perceptions of meaning in life.J Pers Soc Psychol. 2009 Oct;97(4):728-44. doi: 10.1037/a0016417. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2009. PMID: 19785489
-
The power of the past: nostalgia as a meaning-making resource.Memory. 2012 Jul;20(5):452-60. doi: 10.1080/09658211.2012.677452. Epub 2012 May 28. Memory. 2012. PMID: 22639901
-
Self-affirmation reduces smokers' defensiveness to graphic on-pack cigarette warning labels.Health Psychol. 2007 Jul;26(4):437-46. doi: 10.1037/0278-6133.26.4.437. Health Psychol. 2007. PMID: 17605563 Clinical Trial.
Cited by
-
Beyond the Question: Reexamining a Parent's Unusual Request.Pediatrics. 2024 Aug 1;154(2):e2023064954. doi: 10.1542/peds.2023-064954. Pediatrics. 2024. PMID: 39040023
-
Putting reward in art: A tentative prediction error account of visual art.Iperception. 2011;2(9):1035-62. doi: 10.1068/i0466aap. Epub 2011 Dec 15. Iperception. 2011. PMID: 23145260 Free PMC article.
-
Open-Minded Midwifes, Literate Butchers, and Greedy Hooligans-The Independent Contributions of Stereotype Valence and Consistency on Evaluative Judgments.Front Psychol. 2017 Oct 9;8:1723. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01723. eCollection 2017. Front Psychol. 2017. PMID: 29062289 Free PMC article.
-
Strength of socio-political attitudes moderates electrophysiological responses to perceptual anomalies.PLoS One. 2019 Aug 5;14(8):e0220732. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0220732. eCollection 2019. PLoS One. 2019. PMID: 31381605 Free PMC article.
-
Expectancy violations and the search for meaning among breast cancer survivors.J Posit Psychol. 2013 Sep 1;8(5):10.1080/17439760.2013.807354. doi: 10.1080/17439760.2013.807354. J Posit Psychol. 2013. PMID: 24400022 Free PMC article.
Publication types
MeSH terms
LinkOut - more resources
Full Text Sources
