runningheadacetaminophenreducesmeaningmaintenance.docVIP

Running head: Acetaminophen reduces meaning maintenance The common pain of surrealism and death: Acetaminophen reduces compensatory affirmation following meaning threats Daniel Randles, Steven J. Heine, Nathan Santos University of British Columbia In press (Psychological Science) Key words: attitudes, brain, meaning, threat. Authors’ note: This research was funded by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (410-2011-0409) to Heine and a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Doctoral Fellowship to Randles. Correspondence to: Steven J. Heine or Daniel Randles, Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, 2136 West Mall, Vancouver, B.C., V6T 1Z4, Canada. Email: heine@psych.ubc.ca or dan3791@psych.ubc.ca.  ABSTRACT The meaning maintenance model argues that any violation of expectations leads to an affective experience that motivates compensatory affirmation. We explore whether the neural mechanism that responds to meaning threats can be inhibited by acetaminophen, in the same way that it inhibits physical pain or the distress caused by social rejection. Across two studies, participants received either acetaminophen or a placebo, and were provided with either an unsettling experience or a control experience. In Study 1, participants either wrote about their death or a control topic. In Study 2, participants either watched a surrealist film clip or a control film clip. In both studies, participants in the meaning threat condition who had taken a placebo showed typical compensatory affirmations by becoming more punitive towards law-breakers, while those who had taken acetaminophen, and those in the control conditions, did not.  It does not take long after the opening credits of a David Lynch film for the viewer to sense that something is awry. Whether it’s the nonlinear dream imagery, the unsettling juxtaposition of the beautiful alongside the horrifying, or the surreal disconnect between the events and ch