Travis Proulx, Steven J. Heine, and Kathleen D. Vohs — When Is the Unfamiliar the Uncanny? Meaning Affirmation After Exposure to Absurdist Literature, Humor, and Art

19 published claims from this book.

• A common arousal state follows from any meaning violation and drives compensatory affirmation.
• Absurdist art may arouse uncanny feelings and provoke defensive affirmation
• Absurdist humor constitutes a meaning threat worthy of psychological study.
• Absurdist meaning threat should trigger defensive ingroup affirmation like other threats
• Absurdity is conceptually defined as unfamiliar juxtapositions of familiar elements.
• Absurdity is defined as familiar form leading to unfamiliar conclusions
• Ads pairing familiar elements oddly work by evoking meaning affirmation, not just recall.
• Compensation for meaning threat operates through affirmation of alternative meaning frameworks.
• Defense responses may reflect a general meaning-maintenance motive rather than content-specific threat protection
• Distinguishes absurdist from standard humor by the absence of incongruity-resolving punch lines.
• Meaning threat requires unexpected incongruity, not incongruity alone.
• Meaning threats and their affirmation responses are content-free and general across domains.
• Meaning threats evoke a content-independent need for meaning structure
• Meaning threats trigger affirmation of whatever meaning frameworks are handy
• Meaningless absurdist content triggers compensatory affirmation just like intergroup threat
• Only unexpected violations in familiar settings threaten meaning frameworks
• Reading absurdist literature amplifies affirmation of one’s cultural identity.
• The harshness effect is not mediated by self-reported mood.
• Unresolved absurdity triggers harsher moral judgments of a stranger.