Absurdist meaning threat should trigger defensive ingroup affirmation like other threats

Evidence

We predicted that Kafka’s “unfamiliar familiar” parable would constitute an uncanny experience and evoke compensatory affirmation efforts analogous to other meaning threats (e.g., self-threat/self-affirmation; Steele & Liu, 1983). Conversely, we did not expect Aesop’s parable to constitute an uncanny experience and therefore would not evoke compensatory affirmation efforts. In the current experiment, we gave participants the opportunity to affirm an alternative affiliative meaning framework by identifying with their cultural ingroup. We predicted that participants whose meaning frameworks had been disrupted by the Kafka parable would compensate for this meaning threat by later identifying with their ingroup more than would participants whose meaning frameworks were undisrupted by Aesop’s parable. — Travis Proulx, Steven J. Heine, and Kathleen D. Vohs, When Is the Unfamiliar the Uncanny?…, 30

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to the reader’s purpose: testing whether absurdity exposure produces the defensive-affirmation response typical of intergroup threat, i.e., whether group-boundary defense is a special case of meaning-maintenance. — connects to: Meaning threats trigger affirmation of whatever meaning frameworks are handy — Travis Proulx, Steven J. Heine, and Kathleen D. Vohs, When Is the Unfamiliar the Uncanny?…, 3; Meaningless absurdist content triggers compensatory affirmation just like intergroup threat — Travis Proulx, Steven J. Heine, and Kathleen D. Vohs, When Is the Unfamiliar the Uncanny?…, 47; Absurdist humor constitutes a meaning threat worthy of psychological study. — Travis Proulx, Steven J. Heine, and Kathleen D. Vohs, When Is the Unfamiliar the Uncanny?…, 42 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Meaningless absurdist content triggers compensatory affirmation just like intergroup threat #corroborates (0.97) — Travis Proulx, Steven J. Heine, and Kathleen D. Vohs, When Is the Unfamiliar the Uncanny?…, 47
• Absurdist humor constitutes a meaning threat worthy of psychological study. #expands (0.85) — Travis Proulx, Steven J. Heine, and Kathleen D. Vohs, When Is the Unfamiliar the Uncanny?…, 42
• Absurdist art may arouse uncanny feelings and provoke defensive affirmation #exemplifies (0.82) — Travis Proulx, Steven J. Heine, and Kathleen D. Vohs, When Is the Unfamiliar the Uncanny?…, 10
• Threats can increase ingroup identification, not merely follow from it #corroborates (0.80) — Blake M. Riek, Eric W. Mania, and Samuel L. Gaertner, Intergroup Threat and Outgroup Attitudes, 126
• Threats to a person’s ingroup are experienced as threats to the self itself #expands (0.78) — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 338
• Evolutionary logic explains why group members identify with ingroups and react emotionally to threats #expands (0.76)
• Control motivation but not implicit death cognition drives threat-based ingroup defense. #complicates (0.72) — Dmitrij Agroskin and Eva Jonas, Controlling death by defending ingroups, 143