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Nostalgia confers psychological wellbeing by increasing authenticity

Nostalgia confers psychological wellbeing by increasing authenticity
Nostalgia confers psychological wellbeing by increasing authenticity
Nostalgia, a sentimental longing for one’s past, predicts or augments psychological wellbeing (PWB). We hypothesized that it does so—at least in part—via authenticity, a sense of alignment with one’s true self. We obtained support for this hypothesis in four studies. Using a measurement-of-mediation design, across a Western (United States) and East-Asian (China) culture, we found that nostalgia is associated with both authenticity and PWB, and that the nostalgia-PWB link is mediated by authenticity (Study 1, N = 611). Using an experimental-causal-chain design, we showed that nostalgia increases authenticity across U.S. and Chinese samples (Study 2, N = 777). We then demonstrated that authenticity increases PWB on a domain-general measure (Study 3, N = 596, U.S. sample). Finally, we clarified that the benefits authenticity confers on PWB are domain general rather than domain specific (Study 4, N = 414, U.K. sample). This research represents the first attempt to address systematically the path from nostalgia to PWB via authenticity. We discuss implications for the broader literature.
Authenticity, Autonomy, Meaning in life, Nostalgia, Psychological wellbeing
0022-1031
Kelley, Nicholas
445e767b-ad9f-44f2-b2c6-d981482bb90b
Davis, William E.
e05532aa-b2c5-4e22-9613-0fa435053adf
Dang, Jianning
b97344ca-0f79-428e-937e-d64c39df8954
Liu, Li
1488b9e0-a389-4dd5-9a00-98a0bcaba4ff
Wildschut, Tim
4452a61d-1649-4c4a-bb1d-154ec446ff81
Sedikides, Constantine
9d45e66d-75bb-44de-87d7-21fd553812c2
Kelley, Nicholas
445e767b-ad9f-44f2-b2c6-d981482bb90b
Davis, William E.
e05532aa-b2c5-4e22-9613-0fa435053adf
Dang, Jianning
b97344ca-0f79-428e-937e-d64c39df8954
Liu, Li
1488b9e0-a389-4dd5-9a00-98a0bcaba4ff
Wildschut, Tim
4452a61d-1649-4c4a-bb1d-154ec446ff81
Sedikides, Constantine
9d45e66d-75bb-44de-87d7-21fd553812c2

Kelley, Nicholas, Davis, William E., Dang, Jianning, Liu, Li, Wildschut, Tim and Sedikides, Constantine (2022) Nostalgia confers psychological wellbeing by increasing authenticity. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 102 (9), [104379]. (doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2022.104379).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Nostalgia, a sentimental longing for one’s past, predicts or augments psychological wellbeing (PWB). We hypothesized that it does so—at least in part—via authenticity, a sense of alignment with one’s true self. We obtained support for this hypothesis in four studies. Using a measurement-of-mediation design, across a Western (United States) and East-Asian (China) culture, we found that nostalgia is associated with both authenticity and PWB, and that the nostalgia-PWB link is mediated by authenticity (Study 1, N = 611). Using an experimental-causal-chain design, we showed that nostalgia increases authenticity across U.S. and Chinese samples (Study 2, N = 777). We then demonstrated that authenticity increases PWB on a domain-general measure (Study 3, N = 596, U.S. sample). Finally, we clarified that the benefits authenticity confers on PWB are domain general rather than domain specific (Study 4, N = 414, U.K. sample). This research represents the first attempt to address systematically the path from nostalgia to PWB via authenticity. We discuss implications for the broader literature.

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Kelley et al., 2022, JESP - Accepted Manuscript
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Accepted/In Press date: 17 June 2022
e-pub ahead of print date: 29 June 2022
Published date: 1 September 2022
Additional Information: Publisher Copyright: © 2022 The Authors
Keywords: Authenticity, Autonomy, Meaning in life, Nostalgia, Psychological wellbeing

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 467986
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/467986
ISSN: 0022-1031
PURE UUID: c17fc489-a495-4765-9b4b-124d701cfdba
ORCID for Nicholas Kelley: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-2256-0597
ORCID for Tim Wildschut: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-6499-5487
ORCID for Constantine Sedikides: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-4036-889X

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Date deposited: 27 Jul 2022 16:51
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 03:57

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Contributors

Author: Nicholas Kelley ORCID iD
Author: William E. Davis
Author: Jianning Dang
Author: Li Liu
Author: Tim Wildschut ORCID iD

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