The Meaning Maintenance Model: On the Coherence of …

PersonalityandSocialPsychologyReview Copyright@2006by 2 0 0 6V. o l .1 0 .N o . 2 . 8 8 - 1 1 0 LawrenceErlbaumAssociates. Inc. The MeaningMaintenanceModel: On the Coherenceof SocialMotivations StevenJ. Heine TbavisProulx Department of Psychology University of British Columbia Kathleen D. Vohs Department of Marketing and Logistics Management Unive rsity of Minne sota The Meaning maintenancemodel (MMM) proposesthat people hat,ea needfor mean- ing; that is, aneedto perceiveeventsthrougha prism ofmental representations ofex- pected relations that organizestheir perceptions of the world. Whenpeople's senseof Meaning is threatened,they reaffirm alternative representationsas a $'al to rego'n Meaning -a process termedfluid to the model ,people can reaffirmmeqningin domainsthat are dffirent from the domainin which the threatoc- curred. Evidencefor fluid compensationcan be obsened following a varien* of psy- chological threats, including most especially threats to the self, such as self-esteem threats,feelings of uncertainQ, interpersonal rejection, and mortali4' ple respondto thesediverse threats in highly similar ways, which suggeststhat o range of psychological motivations are expressionsof a singular impulse to generate and maintain a senseof meqninR.

Personality and Social Psychology Review 2006. Vol. 10. No.2.88-110 Nostalgia for unity, that appetite for the absolute illustrates the essential impulse of the human

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  Model, Maintenance, Unity, Coherence, Maintenance model, On the coherence, Nostalgia for unity, Nostalgia

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