Feeling better or doing better? : on the functions of inconsistency reduction (and other matters)

In the target article, Travis Proulx and Michael Inzlicht suggest that expectancy violations cause an arousing negative affective state (or aversive arousal) and that humans are motivated to behave in several ways in order to reduce this negative state. They propose their meaning maintenance model as an integration of a diverse array of phenomena, including research on cognitive dissonance and terror management theory, Piaget's ideas about the processes of cognitive development, and the ideas of Freud and the existentialist philosophers.