Using the past to promote a peaceful future: Nostalgia mitigates existential threat induced nationalistic and religious self-sacrifice

Routledge, Clay, Juhl, Jacob, Abeyta, Andrew and Roylance, Christina (2014) Using the past to promote a peaceful future: Nostalgia mitigates existential threat induced nationalistic and religious self-sacrifice. Social Psychology, 45 (5), 339-346. (doi:10.1027/1864-9335/a000172).

Abstract

Recent research has demonstrated that nostalgia is a source of meaning in life that people utilize when managing existential concerns. The current studies further explored the existential function of nostalgia by testing the prediction that nostalgia decreases ideologically extreme defenses against existential threat (i.e., self-sacrifice on behalf of one's nation or religion). Results supported this hypothesis. In Study 1, mortality salience increased willingness to engage in nationalistic self-sacrifice for those low, but not high, in trait nostalgia. In Study 2, manipulated nostalgia mitigated the relationship between death-thought accessibility and willingness to engage in religious self-sacrifice

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