original academic paper, liberated from behind the facebook login http://ompldr.org/vaTY4Ng/Randles_2012.pdf
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.