Cited by 350Nostalgia and Consumer BehaviorIdentity, Memory, and TherapyDeath Anxiety and Social Exclusion

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 315 of the 353 references it cites were found in a registry or an index, and 1 are not checked yet; 77 of the 240 sources its claims cite were checked for support.

To Nostalgize

Open access

Verified 2026-10-11 · 1 reference not checked yet

Overview

AI snapshot

Written from the paper’s full text.

TL;DR

This review rehabilitates nostalgia as a predominantly positive, social, self-conscious emotion that serves self-oriented, existential, and sociality functions and helps regulate psychological and physiological homeostasis. It synthesizes historical, prototype, cross-cultural, and experimental evidence showing nostalgia is common, pancultural, and triggered by threats, then alleviates them.

Key findings

  • Nostalgia is described as bittersweet but mostly positive, social, and past-oriented, arising from fond memories and yearning about childhood, close relationships, or atypically positive events, with a redemption trajectory. It is prevalent: UK samples report experiencing it at least weekly and modally three times a week, across ages 18–91 and also among children and teenagers.
  • Prototype work identified 35 features, split into 18 central and 17 peripheral features (median 5.68). Across 18 countries, ranking profiles were highly correlated: all 153 correlations were positive and significant, 96.08% exceeded ρ = .50, 40.52% exceeded ρ = .80, and the mean/median correlation was ρ = .78; all but Cameroon showed the same ordinal pattern, and all but Cameroon, Ethiopia, and Uganda formed one cluster.
  • Nostalgia serves self-oriented functions (self-positivity, self-esteem, optimism, psychological growth), existential functions (meaning in life), and sociality functions (social connectedness, support, empathy, prosocial behavior, reduced desire for money, intergroup contact intentions). Nostalgia-elicited sociality often mediates the self and existential functions, and these effects are generally independent of positive affect.
  • A regulatory/homeostatic model is supported: threats such as avoidance motivation, self-threat, meaninglessness, mortality awareness, loneliness, exclusion, stress, boredom, and cold increase nostalgia; nostalgia then alleviates them. For cold, daily temperature was negatively associated with nostalgia (t[550] = −2.17, r = −.09), cold (20°C) produced more nostalgia than normal (24°C) or hot (28°C), and nostalgia increased perceived warmth and cold-pressor endurance at 4°C.

Methods

  • This is a narrative review and theoretical synthesis of the authors’ research program, not a single new empirical study; it integrates historical analysis, dictionary and lay prototype studies, cross-cultural comparisons, and many correlational and experimental studies.
  • Samples include UK, US, Dutch, Chinese, Irish, and other participants; university students, community adults, children/teenagers aged 9–15, and adults aged 18–91; the cross-cultural prototype work spanned 18 countries across five continents.
  • Main analyses include prototype centrality ratings, rank-order correlations, cluster and factor analyses, and experiments using the Event Reflection Task (nostalgic vs. ordinary/positive/future event), music, song lyrics, and scents; mediation and moderation were tested with bootstrapping, SEM, and hierarchical linear modeling.

Limitations

  • The paper states that long-term benefits of nostalgia may be only transient and that this remains a knowledge gap; it also notes that its nostalgia manipulations were momentary, one-off, and mundane, likely minimal, and that many outcomes relied on self-report.
  • The paper states that the cross-cultural prototype work recruited university students to maintain consistency in education and age, limiting generalizability.
  • Evident from the text: the review is not a systematic or meta-analytic synthesis, much evidence comes from the same research group, and several mediational findings rely on self-report, though alternative causal sequences were tested and generally fit less well.

Model-written summary. Check it against the paper before relying on it.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/bs.aesp.2014.10.001

Cites

315 of 316 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Nothing to recompute.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

116 Own interpretation · 94 No full text of the sources · 51 Supported · 27 Own result · 21 Sources not found · 14 Partly supported · 12 No basis given · 7 Supported so far · 7 Not checked yet · 2 Couldn’t confirm · 2 Own method · accuracy not yet measured

Show all 258 claims

  • It may state two separate claims as one. 78
  • The quote only partly states this claim. 1
  • Probably not a substantial claim. 21
95 of 95
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The 18 countries sampled are representative of all cultures, allowing generalization to panculturality.

    “We (Hepper, Wildschut, et al., 2014) gauged the equivalence of prototypical conceptions of nostalgia in a range of cultures that spanned 18 countries (e.g., Australia, Chile, China, Ethiopia, Germany, India, Japan, Uganda, Romania, United States) across five continents.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    University students are representative of their cultures for lay conceptions of nostalgia.

    “We confined our participant recruitment to university students for the purpose of maintaining consistency in sample educational attainment and age (Van de Vijver & Leung, 1997).”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Nostalgia is a profoundly social emotion.

    “Nostalgia is a profoundly social emotion, and, as such, it will be often elicited during social encounters or conversations with close others.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Findings from the cited samples generalize to the general population.

    “Taken together, these findings establish that nostalgia elevates selfesteem.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The content of nostalgic narratives reflects the nature of nostalgic experience.

    “Nostalgic accounts are, for the most part, redemptive.”
  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    A longer wait implies stronger willingness to suffer for the gain.

    “We assumed that a longer wait implies stronger willingness to suffer for the gain.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Students have a good deal of educational accomplishments, personal milestones, and relational goals to which to look forward.

    “Students have a good deal of educational accomplishments (e.g., achieving good grades, graduating), personal milestones (e.g., getting a job, living alone), and relational goals (e.g., getting married, having children) to which to look forward.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Momentous life events entail textured, personally important experiences that, when contemplated, may serve as a platform for reassuring the individual of presence of meaning in life.

    “Such occurrences entail textured, personally important experiences that, when contemplated upon, may serve as a platform for reassuring the individual of presence of meaning in their life.”
  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    Nostalgia fortifies the self-system.

    “Assuming that nostalgia fortifies the self-system (Routledge et al., 2011, Study 5;Vess et al., 2012, Experiment 1), a nostalgia infusion will decrease the need to respond defensively to meaning threat.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Some persons are more likely than others to endure meaning deficits.

    “Some persons are more likely than others to endure meaning deficits, and, to the extent that nostalgia imbues life with meaning, it should help to offset this void.”
  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    All persons, regardless of circumstances surrounding their upbringing and regardless of personality characteristics, have a certain store of positive, atypical events from which they can draw nostalgically in times of need.

    “Our argument is based on the supposition that all persons, regardless of circumstances surrounding their upbringing and regardless of personality characteristics, have a certain store of positive, atypical events from which they can draw nostalgically in times of need.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Boredom signals lack of meaningful engagement.

    “Boredom signals lack of meaningful engagement.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Nostalgia is a positive emotion.

    “As a positive emotion”
13 of 13

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Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

Each contradiction between two passages listed here was confirmed by an independent check.

4 of 4

Citations

Cites

Show all 353 references

Research works printed but not linked: 6

  1. Cutrona, 1987, The provisions of social relationships and adaptation to stress, Vol. 1, 37
  2. Hofer, 1934, Medical dissertation on nostalgia (C.K. Anspach, Trans.), Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 2, 376
  3. Lears, 1998, Looking backward: In defense of nostalgia, Lingua Franca, 59
  4. Schäfer, 2014, Nostalgie: Warum ein bisschen Wehmut uns guttut, Psychologie Heute, 30
  5. Sohn, 1983, Nostalgia, International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 64, 203
  6. Wildschut, 2009, Nostalgia, Vol. 2, 1168

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Metadata

Authors
Sedikides, C., Wildschut, T., Routledge, C., Arndt, J., Hepper, E. G., & Zhou, X.
Affiliations
  • University of Southampton (GB)
  • North Dakota State University (US)
  • University of Missouri (US)
  • University of Surrey (GB)
  • Sun Yat-sen University (CN)
Corresponding author
Sedikides, Constantine
Venue
Advances in Experimental Social Psychology
Publisher
Elsevier
Published
2015
Pages
189-273
ISSN
0065-2601 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W55904690
Cited by
348
References
353
Citations by year
2026: 26 · 2025: 31 · 2024: 34 · 2023: 42 · 2022: 38 · 2021: 44 · 2020: 30 · 2019: 27 · 2018: 30 · 2017: 22 · 2016: 12 · 2015: 9
FWCI
62.89
Type
book chapter
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Advances in experimental social psychology (publishedVersion)
  • ePrints Soton (University of Southampton) (acceptedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Nostalgia and Consumer Behavior
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Identity, Memory, and Therapy
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Death Anxiety and Social Exclusion
Keywords
nostalgia, functions of emotions, self-positivity, existential meaning, social connectedness, prosocial behavior, avoidance motivation, approach motivation, loneliness, social exclusion, stress, boredom, death awareness, meaninglessness, homeostasis

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