Nostalgia counteracts social anxiety and enhances interpersonal competence
Nostalgia counteracts social anxiety and enhances interpersonal competence
Socially anxious individuals struggle with establishing and maintaining social relationships. We hypothesized that, when socially anxious, people often turn to nostalgia, which alleviates the interpersonal competence deficits that accompany social anxiety. We tested and supported this hypothesis in six studies (N = 1,858), three preregistered. In cross-sectional Study 1, higher (compared with lower) social anxiety individuals more frequently identified interpersonal incompetence as a trigger of nostalgia. In cross-sectional Study 2, social anxiety was associated negatively with interpersonal competence, but positively with nostalgia, which in turn predicted higher interpersonal competence. In the final four studies, we tested causation. Although social anxiety reduced interpersonal competence, it also triggered nostalgia (Studies 3–3S), and nostalgia increased interpersonal competence (Studies 4–5).
emotion, interpersonal competence, nostalgia, social anxiety, emotions
Dai, Yuwan
fbb94f2b-2323-499d-ac17-b7dc4d716b4a
Jiang, Tonglin
d6f2db5e-9f97-4624-b3c8-2db0d3316e5d
Wildschut, Tim
4452a61d-1649-4c4a-bb1d-154ec446ff81
Sedikides, Constantine
9d45e66d-75bb-44de-87d7-21fd553812c2
20 July 2023
Dai, Yuwan
fbb94f2b-2323-499d-ac17-b7dc4d716b4a
Jiang, Tonglin
d6f2db5e-9f97-4624-b3c8-2db0d3316e5d
Wildschut, Tim
4452a61d-1649-4c4a-bb1d-154ec446ff81
Sedikides, Constantine
9d45e66d-75bb-44de-87d7-21fd553812c2
Dai, Yuwan, Jiang, Tonglin, Wildschut, Tim and Sedikides, Constantine
(2023)
Nostalgia counteracts social anxiety and enhances interpersonal competence.
Social Psychological and Personality Science.
(doi:10.1177/19485506231187680).
Abstract
Socially anxious individuals struggle with establishing and maintaining social relationships. We hypothesized that, when socially anxious, people often turn to nostalgia, which alleviates the interpersonal competence deficits that accompany social anxiety. We tested and supported this hypothesis in six studies (N = 1,858), three preregistered. In cross-sectional Study 1, higher (compared with lower) social anxiety individuals more frequently identified interpersonal incompetence as a trigger of nostalgia. In cross-sectional Study 2, social anxiety was associated negatively with interpersonal competence, but positively with nostalgia, which in turn predicted higher interpersonal competence. In the final four studies, we tested causation. Although social anxiety reduced interpersonal competence, it also triggered nostalgia (Studies 3–3S), and nostalgia increased interpersonal competence (Studies 4–5).
Text
Dai, Jiang, Wildschut, & Sedikides, 2023, SPPS
- Accepted Manuscript
More information
Accepted/In Press date: 24 June 2023
e-pub ahead of print date: 20 July 2023
Published date: 20 July 2023
Additional Information:
Funding Information:
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by the grant awarded to Tonglin Jiang by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Number 32271127).
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2023.
Keywords:
emotion, interpersonal competence, nostalgia, social anxiety, emotions
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 480489
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/480489
ISSN: 1948-5506
PURE UUID: 81447cd3-5556-4ab5-818e-7ba26671fa59
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Date deposited: 03 Aug 2023 16:39
Last modified: 18 Mar 2024 02:53
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Author:
Yuwan Dai
Author:
Tonglin Jiang
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