Lecture 5 Meaning maintenance model

Question 1

What is Meaning Maintenance Theory (MMM)

Answer 1

• we seek for meaning
• meaning= meaning representations of expected relations that organises their perceptions of world
• want connections
• identify patterns
• hard to avoid connections– tend to imagine because we’re perceptual beings

Question 2

Example of MMM

Answer 2

• if you see crow, expect it to be black
• expect that good people will be rewarded in life
• bad people will be punished

Question 3

Meaning threats

Answer 3

• expect events to happen for reason– we expect to have control over our actions (like bad things happen to bad people)

Question 4

Violations of expected relations (schema): 5A’s of MMM

Answer 4

1. Assimilation– child dies because mother bad= Just world
2. Accomodation– sometimes, bad things happen to good people
3. Affirmation– fluid compensation light (ex. system threatened, so system justification to sustain need for meaning= we tend to affirm unrelated schemas
4. Assembly– constructing more powerful moral theory to replace a more primitive sense of right and wrong
5. Abstraction– reaffirming altenative framework

Question 5

self-unity

Answer 5

• you’re constantly thinking about yourself

- describe yourself as: shy, outgoing= argue that you have 2 diff selves inhabiting same body