Meaning maintenance model

The central claim

In this model, meaning refers to mental representations of expected associations, whether between objects, actions, or ideas. Violations can be as dramatic as a loss of faith or as subtle as a playing card with the wrong color. The authors argued that apparently different motives, such as defending the self or a worldview, reflect a shared need for coherence.

Fluid compensation

A distinctive claim is that a threat to meaning in one domain can be compensated in a different one. Proulx and Inzlicht later described sense-making as a sequence, and the responses that people might use.

• Reaffirming an unrelated belief or value
• Assimilating the anomaly into an existing framework
• Accommodating by revising a framework
• Seeking out or learning new patterns

Critical assessment

The model offers a unifying story for many compensatory findings, but this breadth makes it hard to falsify: almost any later change in attitude might be read as compensation. Much of the evidence comes from small laboratory studies using indirect outcome measures, and the wider field of threat-compensation research has been affected by concerns over replicability. Independent, well-powered tests are needed before firm conclusions are drawn. The boundaries of what counts as a meaning violation also remain somewhat loose.