Nostalgia Fosters Self-Continuity: Uncovering the Mechanism (Social Connectedness) and Consequence (Eudaimonic Well-Being)

Abstract

Nostalgia, a sentimental longing for one’s past, is an emotion that arises from self-relevant and social memories. Nostalgia functions, in part, to foster self-continuity, that is, a sense of connection between one’s past and one’s present. This article examined, in six experiments, how nostalgia fosters self-continuity and the implications of that process for wellbeing. Nostalgia fosters self-continuity by augmenting social connectedness, that is, a sense of closeness, belongingness, and acceptance (Experiments 1-4). Nostalgia-induced self-continuity, in turn, confers eudaimonic wellbeing, operationalized as subjective vitality (i.e., a feeling of aliveness and energy; Experiments 5-6). The findings clarify and expand the benefits of nostalgia for both the self-system and psychological adjustment.

Full text

Nostalgia Fosters Self-Continuity: Uncovering the Mechanism (Social
Connectedness) and Consequence (Eudaimonic Well-Being)
Constantine Sedikides, Tim Wildschut,
and Wing-Yee Cheung
University of Southampton
Clay Routledge
North Dakota State University
Erica G. Hepper
University of Surrey
Jamie Arndt
University of Missouri
Kenneth Vail
Cleveland State University
Xinyue Zhou
Lingnan College and Sun Yat-Sen University
Kenny Brackstone
University of Southampton
Ad J. J. M. Vingerhoets
Tilburg University
Nostalgia, a sentimental longing for one’s past, is an emotion that arises from self-relevant and social
memories. Nostalgia functions, in part, to foster self-continuity, that is, a sense of connection between
one’s past and one’s present. This article examined, in 6 experiments, how nostalgia fosters self-
continuity and the implications of that process for well-being. Nostalgia fosters self-continuity by
augmenting social connectedness, that is, a sense of belongingness and acceptance (Experiments 1– 4).
Nostalgia-induced self-continuity, in turn, confers eudaimonic well-being, operationalized as subjective
vitality (i.e., a feeling of aliveness and energy; Experiments 5– 6). The findings clarify and expand the
benefits of nostalgia for both the self-system and psychological adjustment.
Keywords: emotion, nostalgia, self, self-continuity, social connectedness, eudaimonic wellbeing
Self-continuity, the sense that one’s past is interwoven with
one’s present, is positively associated with psychological adjust-
ment. With mounting evidence for the merits of self-continuity, it
becomes critical to understand the psychological processes that
give rise to it. We focus on one such antecedent: the emotion of
nostalgia. Past research has shown that nostalgia fosters self-
continuity. But how does it do so and to what effect?
We formulated and tested two hypotheses. First, nostalgia fos-
ters self-continuity through subjective social connectedness; that
is, social connectedness mediates the positive effect of nostalgia on
self-continuity. Second, the self-continuity that ensues from nos-
talgia enhances wellbeing; that is, there is a causal sequence
leading from nostalgia to social connectedness to self-continuity to
wellbeing. We tested these hypotheses separately in the tradition of
establishing a causal chain.
Nostalgia
The New Oxford Dictionary of English (Pearsall, 1998) defines
nostalgia as “a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the
past” (p. 1266). Our research findings are consistent with this
definition. Hepper, Ritchie, Sedikides, and Wildschut (2012) in-
vestigated lay conceptions of nostalgia among U.K. and U.S.
participants via a prototype approach, according to which people’s
understanding of a construct is shaped by repeated experience and
is organized around a cognitive prototype (Wittgenstein, 1953/
1967). The prototype is a fuzzy category with no necessary or
sufficient features, but with more representative (i.e., central)
This article was published Online First January 11, 2016.
Constantine Sedikides, Tim Wildschut, and Wing-Yee Cheung, School of
Psychology, University of Southampton; Clay Routledge, Department of Psychol-
ogy, North Dakota State University; Erica G. Hepper, School of Psychology,
University of Surrey; Jamie Arndt, Department of Psychological Sciences, Uni-
versity of Missouri; Kenneth Vail, Department of Psychology, Cleveland State
University; Xinyue Zhou, Department of Management, Lingnan College and
Department of Psychology, Sun Yat-Sen University; Kenny Brackstone, School of
Psychology, University of Southampton; Ad J. J. M. Vingerhoets, Department of
Medical and Clinical Psychology, Tilburg University.
This research was partially supported by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (91124004, 31171002, and 31322023). We thank
Filippo Cordaro, Claire Hart, Vicky Lehmann, and Sara Robertson for their
help with materials preparation and data collection. We also thank Anke
Karl and Katie Meadmore for access to participants, as well as Ruth
Bowhay, Kyle Dhuse, Alyssa McHenry, Felecia Noguera, and Elizabeth
Stonitsch for help with data coding.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Constan-
tine Sedikides, Centre for Research on Self and Identity, University of
Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, United Kingdom. E-mail:
cs2@soton.ac.uk
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
Emotion © 2016 American Psychological Association
2016, Vol. 16, No. 4, 524–539 1528-3542/16/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/emo0000136
524

features being closer to the prototype than less representative (i.e.,
peripheral) ones (Rosch, 1978).
Central features of nostalgia included fond, rose-colored, and
personally meaningful recollections of childhood or social rela-
tionships. Central features also included triggers of nostalgia, such
as keepsakes or sensory cues (see also Reid, Green, Wildschut, &
Sedikides, 2015), and verbs such as remembering, reminiscing,
reliving, longing, missing, and wanting to return to the past.
Further, although positive and negative feelings were both repre-
sented among central features, the former outnumber the latter (see
also Wildschut, Sedikides, Arndt, & Routledge, 2006). Peripheral
features included warmth/comfort, daydreaming, change, calm,
regret, success, and lethargy. Hepper et al. (2014) replicated these
findings in 18 countries (e.g., Australia, Chile, China, Ethiopia,
Germany, India, Japan, Romania, Uganda) that spanned five con-
tinents.
A portrait of nostalgia has emerged not only from prototype
analyses (Hepper et al., 2012,2014), but also from narrative
coding of nostalgic episodes (Abeyta, Routledge, Roylance, Wild-
schut, & Sedikides, 2015;Batcho, 1998;Hart et al., 2011;Holak
& Havlena, 1998;Wildschut et al., 2006). Nostalgia is a bitter-
sweet (but mostly positive), past-oriented, and often social emo-
tion. In nostalgic reverie, one brings to mind a fond and meaning-
ful episode in which the self is the protagonist, often involving
one’s childhood or a close relationship. The nostalgizer typically
recounts this episode through rose-colored glasses and may pine
for that time or relational bond. The nostalgizer feels sentimental,
mostly happy or even joyful but with tinges of longing or sadness
(Sedikides, Wildschut, Routledge, Arndt et al., 2015).
Nostalgia is a prevalent emotion. Amid anecdotal reports that
nostalgia is experienced by virtually everyone (Boym, 2001),
research has ascertained that the majority of undergraduate stu-
dents (Wildschut et al., 2006) and community members regardless
of age (Hepper, Robertson, Wildschut, Sedikides, & Routledge,
2015) feel nostalgic at least once a week and modally three times
a week. Also, nostalgia is conceptualized and felt similarly across
cultures (Hepper et al., 2014).
Mounting evidence suggests that nostalgia serves as a psycho-
logical resource on which people can draw to restore and enhance
a range of aspects of wellbeing (Routledge, Wildschut, Sedikides,
& Juhl, 2013;Wildschut, Sedikides, & Cordaro, 2011). Although
the content of nostalgic narratives is complex (Batcho, 2007;
Holak & Havlena, 1992;Stephan, Sedikides, & Wildschut, 2012)
and the emotion serves multiple functions (e.g., self-related, exis-
tential, behavioral; Sedikides, Wildschut, Arndt, & Routledge,
2008;Sedikides, Wildschut, Routledge, Arndt et al., 2015;
Sedikides, Wildschut, Routledge, Arndt, & Zhou, 2009;Rout-
ledge, Sedikides, Wildschut, & Juhl, 2013), it is important to
highlight its sociality, as this function is most relevant to the
objective of the current investigation. Nostalgia in part reflects the
human ability to draw strength and motivation from memories of
close others rather than be burdened with the absence or loss of
those relationships (Stephan et al., 2014;Zauberman, Ratner, &
Kim, 2009;Wildschut, Sedikides, Routledge, Arndt, & Cordaro,
2010). In particular, nostalgia increases social connectedness,
which we define as a sense of belongingness, and acceptance.
Social connectedness is manifested in nostalgia’s capacity to pro-
mote perceptions of friendship and social support, lower attach-
ment avoidance and attachment anxiety, counteract loneliness, and
engender subjective interpersonal competence (Hepper et al.,
2012;Routledge et al., 2013;Wildschut et al., 2006;Zhou,
Sedikides, Wildschut, & Gao, 2008;Seehusen et al., 2013).
Self-Continuity
We define self-continuity as a sense of connection between
one’s past and one’s present (Sedikides, Wildschut, Routledge, &
Arndt, 2015). Philosophical views regard self-continuity as a pre-
requisite of identity (Parfit, 1971;Wiggins, 2001). Among psy-
chologists, William James (1890) was the first to propose that the
self is situated in time or is temporally extended. In offering a
distinction between the “I” (the self as knower) and the “Me” (the
self as object), James (1890) argued that a crucial feature of the “I”
is continuity. In particular, the link in memory between the past
and present self is the basis of one’s sense of self (the “I”) and the
specific content that one ascribes to it (the “Me”). Past experience,
James contended, is unified by an irreducible entity, the I. Al-
though people undergo physical and psychological changes, they
remain the same person over time (Erikson, 1968;Neisser, 1988).
That is, the one who feels these changes is the I: The I is the great
connector or synthesizer (Madell, 1981;Williams, 1970).
The empirical evidence is consistent with the notion of self-
continuity as a synthesizer of experience (Atchley, 1989;Troll &
Skaff, 1997), and with self-continuity’s prevalence and importance
(Breakwell, 1986;Habermas & Bluck, 2000). As Lampinen, Ode-
gard, and Leding (2004) stated, “the majority of people, the ma-
jority of time, report experiencing the self diachronically” (p. 246).
Not only is self-continuity a distinguishing feature of the human
self, but humans also have a potent need to attain or maintain it
(Vignoles, 2011;Vignoles, Regalia, Manzi, Golledge, & Scabini,
2006).
In addition, empirical evidence points to the functionality of
self-continuity. For example, self-continuity (operationalized as
self-perceptions of stability across time or “sameness”) is posi-
tively associated with indices of psychological adjustment. One
such index is hedonic wellbeing, which focuses on happiness and
in particular on pleasure attainment and pain avoidance (Ryan &
Deci, 2001). Higher self-continuity is related to positive affect
(Troll & Skaff, 1997), whereas lower self-continuity is related to
negative affect and anxiety (Chandler, Lalonde, Sokol, & Hallett,
2003). Another index of psychological adjustment is psychopa-
thology. In a study by Lampinen et al. (2004), “approximately 15%
of the participants who described themselves as diachronically
disunified had at least a 70% chance of falling into the patholog-
ically dissociative taxon. None of the participants who described
themselves as being diachronically unified had that high of a
probability” (p. 248). Yet another index of psychological adjust-
ment is existential equanimity. Self-continuity (operationalized as
perceived autobiographical coherence, which is similar to “self-
perceptions of stability across time or ‘sameness’”) protects people
from fear of death by infusing them with a sense of order and
significance (Landau, Greenberg, & Solomon, 2008;Landau,
Greenberg, & Sullivan, 2009).
Nostalgia as an Antecedent of Self-Continuity
Davis (1979) was the first to speculate that nostalgia might
promote a sense of continuity between one’s past and present.
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
525
NOSTALGIA, SELF-CONTINUITY, AND WELLBEING

Nostalgia, he mused, “marshal[s] our psychological resources for
continuity” (p. 34; see also Sedikides, Wildschut, Gaertner, Rout-
ledge, & Arndt, 2008). The potential of nostalgia to link effectively
one’s past with one’s present is suggested by narrative analyses.
Stephan et al. (2012, Experiment 1) induced nostalgia experimen-
tally with the Event Reflection Task (Sedikides, Wildschut, Rout-
ledge, Arndt et al., 2015). Participants visualized a personally
experienced nostalgic event versus a personally experienced ordi-
nary (e.g., everyday or regular) event. Subsequently, participants
provided a brief narrative of the event. Stephan et al. proceeded to
code the narratives for abstractness/concreteness on the basis of
the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (Pennebaker, Booth, &
Francis, 2007) and the Linguistic Category Model (Coenen, Hede-
bouw, & Semin, 2006). Nostalgic (compared to ordinary) narra-
tives contained a higher number of both abstract terms and con-
crete terms. Importantly, concrete terms underpinned the relevance
of the nostalgic episode for the nostalgizer’s present. For example,
concrete terms illustrated a behavior or state in the present (“I
smile . . .”) that was instigated by a past event (“. . . when I look
at my family photo on my desk”). Stephan et al. (Experiment 2)
replicated these findings. Nostalgic (compared to ordinary or pos-
itive) recollections not only contained more abstract and concrete
construal, but the concrete construal linked the nostalgizer’s past
with her or his present.
Sedikides, Wildschut, Routledge, and Arndt (2015, Study 3)
tested directly the idea that nostalgia fosters self-continuity. Using
the Event Reflection Task, they induced nostalgia (vs. ordinary
autobiographical recollection), and subsequently measured self-
continuity. To do so, they generated four items to fit their concep-
tual definition of continuity (i.e., sense of connection between
one’s past and one’s present). The four items, under the rubric
Self-Continuity Index, were: “I feel connected with my past,” “I
feel connected with who I was in the past,” “There is continuity in
my life,” and “Important aspects of my personality remain the
same across time.” Nostalgia (relative to control) increased self-
continuity. Using the Event Reflection Task, Sedikides et al.
(Study 4) induced nostalgia (vs. ordinary vs. positive autobio-
graphical recollection), and again measured self-continuity. In
replication, nostalgia (relative to both controls) increased self-
continuity, and it did so above and beyond levels of positive affect.
Taken together, nostalgia augmented self-continuity, in line with
Davis’s (1979) speculation and Stephan et al.’s (2012) suggestive
evidence.
The finding that nostalgia fosters self-continuity (Sedikides,
Wildschut, Routledge, & Arndt, 2015) invites explication of how
such an effect might occur. We propose that nostalgia has the
capacity to foster self-continuity due, in part, to the social con-
nectedness that it engenders. As noted previously, a number of
studies demonstrate that nostalgia increases social connectedness,
operationalized in terms of feelings of being loved, protected, and
supported (Hepper et al., 2012;Wildschut et al., 2006;Zhou et al.,
2008). But why will social connectedness, in turn, augment self-
continuity?
There are good reasons to hypothesize that social connectedness
augments self-continuity. When nostalgizing, figures from the past
join one’s present (Sedikides, Wildschut, & Baden, 2004) and the
“mind is ‘peopled’” (Hertz, 1990, p. 195). The relationships about
which one nostalgizes may become part of how one thinks about
one’s self at the present through reflected appraisal processes (i.e.,
seeing one’s self the way close others used to do so; Wallace &
Tice, 2012) and inclusion processes (i.e., incorporating close oth-
ers into one’s current self-concept; Aron & Nardone, 2012). Re-
flected appraisal and inclusion processes may reduce the distance
(D’Argembeau et al., 2008) between one’s past self and present
self, thus facilitating a representation of one’s life trajectory as a
continuous social journey rather than as a series of isolated events
(Landau, Meier, & Keefer, 2010). For example, nostalgic memo-
ries of a parent may serve as reminders that the love and confi-
dence they imparted continue to buoy us to this day (reflected
appraisal process). And nostalgia can remind us that the adventur-
ous spirit we caught from a close friend while traveling together
continues to inspire us (inclusion processes). Beyond these pro-
cesses, the very nature of the nostalgic reflection may highlight the
temporal trajectory of personal relationships that define the rela-
tional self (Andersen & Chen, 2002) and one’s consequent iden-
tity. Nostalgic memories of a first date with a current spouse or
romantic partner (e.g., during one’s high school or university
years) may frame both the relationship and one’s current sense of
who one is, as continuing across time and life stages. In this way,
the social connectedness that derives from nostalgia may help to
create the perception of a social fabric that links closely the past
self with the present self.
Moreover, nostalgic narratives refer to meaningful life events.
Such events often reflect family customs, vacations or holidays,
and, more generally, cultural rituals—what Berntsen and Rubin
(2004) labeled as cultural-life-script events (e.g., family Thanks-
giving, high school graduation, birthday celebration, wedding an-
niversary; Abeyta et al., 2015;Holak & Havlena, 1992;Wildschut
et al., 2006). These textured and personally important relational
events or communal traditions serve as links between one’s past
and one’s present. They encapsulate and clarify an individual’s life
trajectory (e.g., how one gets “from there to here”), and are the
landmarks that help an individual navigate through life. Crucially,
such events and traditions are defined by the people who enact
them and weave the narrative thread of one’s important personal
relationships. For example, nostalgic memories of a childhood
family Thanksgiving may prompt memories of other Thanksgiv-
ings and evoke a mental storyboard of our relationships with
parents and siblings across the years. Hence, memories of such
traditions are likely to foster a sense of continuity between one’s
past and present.
Building on the above rationale, we first hypothesized (Hypoth-
esis 1) that nostalgic reverie will augment self-continuity, because
it increases social connectedness. Accordingly, we test the nostal-
gia )social connectedness )self-continuity mediational model.
We evaluated this hypothesized model in four experiments, using
multiple converging approaches to the operationalization or exper-
imental manipulation of nostalgia, as well as diverse samples and
settings. In Experiment 1 (a laboratory experiment with U.K.
university students), we implement a manipulation of nostalgia—
which capitalizes on music’s capacity to elicit that emotion (Bar-
rett et al., 2010;Cheung et al., 2013;Routledge et al., 2011;
Stephan et al., 2015)—and assess its effect on self-continuity via
social connectedness. In Experiment 2 (a laboratory experiment
with Chinese and U.K. university students), we test whether social
connectedness mediates the effect of nostalgia on self-continuity in
both East-Asian and Western cultures. In Experiment 3 (an online
experiment with crowdsourced U.S. volunteers from Amazon’s
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
526 SEDIKIDES ET AL.

MTurk), we examine whether the mediating role of social con-
nectedness replicates when we control for the role of positive
affect. Experiments 1–3 use a measurement-of-mediation design to
test Hypothesis 1. Experiment 4 (a laboratory experiment with
U.K. university students), supplements this approach with an
experimental-causal-chain design (Spencer, Zanna, & Fong,
2005). We manipulate social connectedness (the mediator) and
assess its causal impact on self-continuity (the dependent variable).
Nostalgia, Self-Continuity, and Implications for
Eudaimonic Wellbeing
As we noted above, self-continuity is positively associated with
psychological adjustment, such as hedonic wellbeing (e.g., posi-
tive affect; Chandler et al., 2003;Troll & Skaff, 1997) and exis-
tential equanimity (Landau et al., 2008,2009), and is negatively
associated with psychopathology (Lampinen et al., 2004). So far,
however, no research has examined the causal relation between
self-continuity and a pivotal type of wellbeing: eudaimonic well-
being. Eudaimonic wellbeing focuses on meaning and self-
realization, and, in particular, on the extent to which individuals
are fully functioning (Ryan & Deci, 2001;Waterman, 1993). In the
final two experiments, we examined the hitherto untested hypoth-
esis that nostalgia-induced self-continuity confers eudaimonic
wellbeing.
We formulated Hypothesis 2 as follows: Nostalgia, by virtue of
its capacity to foster self-continuity via social connectedness,
confers eudaimonic wellbeing. We operationalized eudaimonic
wellbeing in terms of arguably its most archetypal index, namely
subjective vitality. This refers to a feeling of energy and aliveness
that can occur when one is existing in a fully actualized way (Ryan
& Deci, 2001;Waterman, 1993). Higher subjective vitality is a
highly diagnostic marker of healthy psychological functioning. For
example, higher subjective vitality is related to increased levels of
self-determination, self-actualization, extraversion, conscientious-
ness, authenticity, and work concentration, and is related to de-
creased levels of neuroticism (Dubreuil, Forest, & Courcy, 2014;
Ryan & Frederick, 1997;Tekin & Satici, 2014). An additional
benefit of utilizing subjective vitality as an indicator of eudaimonic
wellbeing is that it focuses on the self (i.e., how energized, alive,
and vital one feels) and thus offers a test of whether the social
connectedness generated by nostalgia ultimately contributes to
personal, and not just social, wellbeing via self-continuity.
Experiment 5 (a laboratory experiment involving U.K. univer-
sity students) used an experimental-causal-chain design (Spencer
et al., 2005) to manipulate self-continuity (the mediator) and assess
its causal impact on eudaimonic wellbeing (the dependent vari-
able). Experiment 6 (an online experiment with crowdsourced U.S.
volunteers from Amazon’s MTurk), evaluated the full mediational
model (nostalgia )social connectedness )self-continuity )
eudaimonic wellbeing): We induced nostalgia with the Event
Reflection Task and then assessed social connectedness, self-
continuity, and subjective vitality.
1
Experiment 1: Idiographic Induction of Nostalgia
Through Song Lyrics
In Experiment 1, we aimed to test the mediational role of social
connectedness in the relation between nostalgia and self-
continuity. We implemented a manipulation that capitalizes on the
capacity of music (or, more precisely, song lyrics) to evoke nos-
talgia (Cheung et al., 2013;Routledge et al., 2011;Stephan et al.,
2015). Specifically, we induced nostalgia by presenting partici-
pants with lyrics to songs that they had previously identified as
nostalgic (compared with control lyrics). We hypothesized that
exposure to nostalgic song lyrics (vs. exposure to control lyrics)
would heighten self-continuity. We further hypothesized that this
effect would be mediated by increased social connectedness.
Method
Participants, design, and procedure. Participants were 40
University of Southampton undergraduate volunteers (37 females,
3 males). Their age ranged from 20 –39 years (M⫽22.00, SD ⫽
4.06). We randomly assigned them to the nostalgia or control
condition. Due to the small number of male participants, we did
not consider gender in the reported analyses.
Nostalgia manipulation and materials. The experiment in-
volved a preliminary and an experimental session separated by
approximately 1 week. In the preliminary session, participants
received a dictionary definition of nostalgia (“A sentimental long-
ing or wistful affection for the past”; Pearsall, 1998, p. 1266) and
then listed the titles and performing artists of three songs that made
them feel nostalgic. Prior to the experimental session, we ran-
domly allocated participants to conditions. For participants in the
nostalgia condition, we retrieved the lyrics of a song they listed as
nostalgic. We yoked participants in the control condition to a
participant in the nostalgia condition and designated them to
receive the same lyrics as that person. (We ascertained that the
relevant song was not one that the control participant also consid-
ered nostalgic.) In this way, we were able to use the same set of
lyrics in the nostalgia and control conditions, and thus hold con-
stant the content of the lyrics in both conditions (Cheung et al.,
2013;Routledge et al., 2011;Stephan et al., 2015).
During the experimental session, participants first read the pre-
pared lyrics and then completed a three-item nostalgia manipula-
tion check (1 ⫽strongly disagree,6⫽strongly agree): “Right
now, I am feeling quite nostalgic,” “Right now, I am having
nostalgic feelings,” “I feel nostalgic at the moment” (1 ⫽strongly
disagree,6⫽strongly agree;␣⫽.99, M⫽3.79, SD ⫽1.60).
This manipulation check has been validated by prior research in
the United States (Cheung et al., 2013;Routledge et al., 2011), the
United Kingdom (Hepper et al., 2012;Wildschut et al., 2006), and
China (Zhou, Wildschut, Sedikides, Chen, & Vingerhoets, 2012;
Zhou, Wildschut, Sedikides, Shi, & Feng, 2012). Next, participants
responded to an established assessment of social connectedness
(Hepper et al., 2012;Wildschut et al., 2006). The items were
“Right now, I feel . . .‘connected to loved ones,’ ‘protected,’
‘loved,’ and ‘I can trust others’” (1 ⫽strongly disagree,6⫽
strongly agree;␣⫽.95, M⫽3.18, SD ⫽1.55). Finally, partic-
ipants responded to the assessment of self-continuity, the Self-
1
In each experiment, we tested all participants who responded within
the designated study period under the stipulation that the number of
observations per condition (n
condition
) be equal to or greater than 20 (Sim-
mons, Nelson, & Simonsohn, 2011), a rule that we followed in relevant
prior research (Sedikides, Wildschut, Routledge, & Arndt, 2015). Degrees
of freedom vary occasionally due to missing values.
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
527
NOSTALGIA, SELF-CONTINUITY, AND WELLBEING

Continuity Index (SCI; 1 ⫽strongly disagree,6⫽strongly agree;
␣⫽.93, M⫽3.51, SD ⫽1.55).
As mentioned before, we first used the SCI in Sedikides,
Wildschut, Routledge, and Arndt (2015, Studies 3– 4). Here, we
proceeded further to establish the psychometric properties of
this index. One hundred forty-one volunteers (72 males, 69
females) completed materials online. Participants were mem-
bers of the general public in The Netherlands and ranged in age
from 16 – 66 years (M⫽37.70, SD ⫽13.58). Two participants
provided incomplete data and were excluded from the analyses.
Participants responded to the four-item SCI (1 ⫽strongly
disagree,5⫽strongly agree;␣⫽.79, M⫽3.51, SD ⫽0.88).
We used a combination of exploratory and confirmatory factor
analysis to evaluate the factor structure of the SCI (MacCallum,
Roznowski, Mar, & Reith, 1994). For this purpose, we ran-
domly divided the sample into two subgroups. A principal axis
factor analysis based on the responses of the first subgroup (n⫽
69) revealed one factor with an eigenvalue greater than 1 (The
ratio of observations to items [⬃16:1] is adequate for explor-
atory factor analysis; Nunnally & Bernstein, 1994). All four
items had high factor loadings (⬎.60) on this single, dominant
factor. A confirmatory factor analysis based on responses of the
second subgroup (n⫽70) showed that a model specifying a
single factor provided good fit: ␹
2
(2, n⫽70) ⫽2.86, p⫽.24,
SRMSR ⫽.05, RMSEA ⫽.08, CFI ⫽.99.
Results and Discussion
Manipulation check. The nostalgia induction was effective.
As intended, participants who read nostalgic lyrics (M⫽4.98,
SD ⫽0.72) felt more nostalgic than those who read control
lyrics (M⫽2.65, SD ⫽1.35), F(1, 37) ⫽44.59, p⬍.001, ␩
2
⫽
.55.
Effect of nostalgia on self-continuity. As hypothesized, par-
ticipants who read nostalgic lyrics (M⫽4.48, SD ⫽0.96) reported
higher levels of self-continuity than those who read control lyrics
(M⫽2.55, SD ⫽1.43), F(1, 38) ⫽24.95, p⬍.001, ␩
2
⫽.40.
Correlational patterns involving the nostalgia manipulation check
provide further support for this conclusion: The more nostalgic
participants felt, the more self-continuity they reported, r(38) ⫽
.83, p⬍.001.
Mediation by social connectedness. Participants who read
nostalgic lyrics (M⫽3.93, SD ⫽1.10) also reported stronger
social connectedness than those who read control lyrics (M⫽2.43,
SD ⫽1.59), F(1, 38) ⫽12.08, p⫽.001, ␩
2
⫽.24. This indicates
that social connectedness qualifies as a potential mediator of the
nostalgia effect on self-continuity. We used the PROCESS macro
(Hayes, 2013, Model 4) to test the indirect effect (denoted as ab)
of nostalgia on self-continuity via social connectedness (10,000
bootstrap samples). This analysis confirmed that the indirect effect
of nostalgia on self-continuity via social connectedness was sig-
nificant, ab ⫽1.13, SE ⫽0.36, 95% confidence interval (CI)
[0.456, 1.865]. The direct effect was also significant, B⫽0.80,
SE ⫽0.24, 95% CI [0.307, 1.284].
In summary, reading nostalgic (compared to control) lyrics
increased social connectedness and ensuing self-continuity. These
results are consistent with the postulated mediating role of social
connectedness. Nostalgia raises social connectedness, and this
bolstered social connectedness is at least partially responsible for
nostalgia’s capacity to foster self-continuity.
Experiment 2: Cross-Cultural Evidence
In Experiment 2, we examined whether the mediating role of
social connectedness in the relation between nostalgia and self-
continuity would replicate in Western (U.K.) culture, but, impor-
tantly, also generalize to East-Asian (Chinese) culture.
Method
Participants and design. Participants were 70 Chinese under-
graduates from Sun-Yat Sen University (36 males, 34 females) and
122 U.K. undergraduates from University of Southampton (105
females, 17 males). Chinese participants ranged in age from 19 –28
years (M⫽21.98, SD ⫽1.49) and U.K. participants ranged in age
from 18 –57 years (M⫽20.52, SD ⫽5.31). We randomly assigned
them to nostalgia and control conditions. Participants responded to
materials in their native language, with the questionnaire translated
and back-translated by a “committee” of three bilingual speakers
(Brislin, 1980). Preliminary analyses indicated that gender did not
qualify the statistically significant findings reported below. We
therefore omitted gender from the analyses, with one exception
(see below).
Procedure and materials. We induced nostalgia (vs. ordinary
autobiographical recollection) with the Event Reflection Task
(Sedikides, Wildschut, Routledge, Arndt et al., 2015) in which
participants visualize a personally experienced (nostalgic or ordi-
nary) event and then provide a brief narrative of the event. The
manipulation check (␣⫽.94, M⫽3.58, SD ⫽1.36), and mea-
sures of social connectedness (␣⫽.89, M⫽4.11, SD ⫽1.26) and
self-continuity (␣⫽.78, M⫽4.20, SD ⫽1.05) were the same as
those of Experiment 1.
Results and Discussion
Manipulation check. A 2 (nostalgia: nostalgia vs. control) ⫻
2 (country: China vs. U.K.) ANOVA revealed that, as intended,
participants in the nostalgia condition (M⫽3.79, SD ⫽1.26)
reported feeling more nostalgic than those in the control condition
(M⫽3.33, SD ⫽1.44), F(1, 187) ⫽8.45, p⫽.004, ␩
2
⫽.04.
Further, Chinese participants (M⫽4.07, SD ⫽1.46) reported
being more nostalgic than U.K. participants (M⫽3.30, SD ⫽
1.23), F(1, 187) ⫽15.68, p⬍.001, ␩
2
⫽.07. The interaction was
not significant, F(1, 187) ⫽2.22, p⫽.138, ␩
2
⫽.01. In all, the
nostalgia induction was effective.
Effect of nostalgia on self-continuity. Consistent with the
hypothesis, participants in the nostalgia condition (M⫽4.42,
SD ⫽0.83) reported higher self-continuity than those in the
control condition (M⫽3.94, SD ⫽1.21), F(1, 186) ⫽8.53, p⫽
.004, ␩
2
⫽.04. Further, Chinese participants (M⫽4.42, SD ⫽
1.10) reported higher self-continuity than U.K. participants (M⫽
4.07, SD ⫽0.99), F(1, 186) ⫽6.12, p⫽.014, ␩
2
⫽.03. The
interaction was not significant, F(1, 186) ⫽1.51, p⫽.221, ␩
2
⫽
.01. As in Experiment 1, correlational analyses involving the
nostalgia manipulation check corroborated these findings: The
more nostalgic participants felt, the more self-continuity they
reported, r(189) ⫽.48, p⬍.001.
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
528 SEDIKIDES ET AL.

Mediation by social connectedness. Preliminary analyses
produced a significant main effect of gender on social connected-
ness; therefore, we retained gender in the reported analyses. A 2
(nostalgia) ⫻2 (country) ⫻2 (gender) ANOVA on social con-
nectedness indicated that social connectedness was significantly
higher in the nostalgia (M⫽4.39, SD ⫽1.00) than in the control
(M⫽3.79, SD ⫽1.44) condition, F(1, 182) ⫽4.14, p⫽.043,
␩
2
⫽.02. Further, Chinese participants (M⫽4.48, SD ⫽1.06)
reported higher social connectedness than U.K. participants (M⫽
3.89, SD ⫽1.32), F(1, 182) ⫽15.39, p⬍.001, ␩
2
⫽.07. Finally,
women (M⫽4.20, SD ⫽1.31) reported higher social connected-
ness than men (M⫽3.86, SD ⫽1.09), F(1, 182) ⫽9.67, p⫽.002,
␩
2
⫽.04. No other effects were significant. Note that the nostalgia
main effect on social connectedness was also significant when we
did not retain gender in the analyses, F(1, 186) ⫽8.97, p⫽.003,
␩
2
⫽.04.
Social connectedness tracked the effect of nostalgia on self-
continuity and thus qualifies as a potential mediator. A bootstrap-
ping analysis (Hayes, 2013, Model 4) confirmed that the indirect
effect of nostalgia on self-continuity via social connectedness was
significant, ab ⫽0.14, SE ⫽0.05, 95% CI [0.046, 0.238]. The
direct effect was not significant, B⫽0.09, SE ⫽0.06, 95% CI
[⫺0.037, 0.210]. Note that this model controlled for culture and
the Nostalgia ⫻Culture interaction. When we additionally con-
trolled for gender and the Gender ⫻Nostalgia interaction, the
indirect effect remained significant (and was essentially unaltered),
ab ⫽0.14, SE ⫽0.05, 95% CI [0.045, 0.243]. In all, the effect of
nostalgia on self-continuity was mediated by social connected-
ness.
2
Experiment 3: Implementation of a Positive-Affect
Control Condition
In Experiment 3, we examined whether the mediating role of
social connectedness in the nostalgia )self-continuity relation
would replicate when we control for positive affect. After all, work
on nostalgia shows that the content of nostalgic narratives is more
positive than negative (Wildschut et al., 2006), and nostalgia
typically increases positive affect (Hepper et al., 2012;Verplan-
ken, 2012;Wildschut et al., 2006). Although research has estab-
lished unique effects of nostalgia above and beyond positive affect
(Routledge, Wildschut, Sedikides, Juhl, & Arndt, 2012;Turner,
Wildschut, Sedikides, & Gheorghiu, 2013;van Dijke, Wildschut,
Leunissen, & Sedikides, 2015;van Tilburg, Sedikides, & Wild-
schut, 2015;Zhou, Wildschut, Sedikides, Shi et al., 2012), we
needed to gauge the role of positive affect in the context of the
current investigation. To achieve this, we implemented a positive
affect control condition, in which participants were instructed to
recall a lucky event from their past. We hypothesized that partic-
ipants who reflected on a nostalgic event would experience more
social connectedness and concomitant self-continuity than those
who reflected on a lucky event.
Method
Participants. Participants were 90 English-speaking residents
of the United States (55 females, 35 males) who were recruited via
Amazon’s MTurk and received $1.50 upon completion. Partici-
pants’ ages ranged from 19 –73 years (M⫽39.59, SD ⫽13.71).
Participants had a track record of a 95% or better job acceptance
rate. We randomly assigned them to the nostalgia or control
condition.
Procedure and materials. We implemented a version of the
Event Reflection Task. Participants in the nostalgia condition
thought of a nostalgic event in their life (see Experiment 2),
whereas participants in the control condition thought of a lucky
event in their life (“. . . bring to mind a lucky event in your life.
Specifically, try to think of a positive past event that was brought
on by chance rather than through your own actions”). Next, par-
ticipants completed the same measures of social connectedness
(␣⫽.93, M⫽4.72, SD ⫽1.31) and self-continuity (␣⫽.88, M⫽
4.91, SD ⫽1.02) as in Experiments 1–2. Following this, partici-
pants completed a two-item assessment of positive affect (“. . .
happy” and “...inagood mood”; ␣⫽.90, M⫽5.24, SD ⫽0.86)
and the same nostalgia manipulation check as in Experiments 1–2
(␣⫽.98, M⫽4.40, SD ⫽1.46). We administered the manipu-
lation check last to address the possibility that, in Experiments
1–2, we created experimental demand by placing the manipulation
check prior to the social connectedness and self-continuity mea-
sures.
Results and Discussion
Manipulation check. Participants in the nostalgia condition
(M⫽5.15, SD ⫽1.04) reported feeling more nostalgic than those
in the control (i.e., luck) condition (M⫽3.68, SD ⫽1.45), F(1,
88) ⫽30.36, p⬍.001, ␩
2
⫽.26, thus attesting to the effectiveness
of the nostalgia induction. Crucially, the nostalgia (M⫽5.33,
SD ⫽0.83) and control (M⫽5.16, SD ⫽0.89) conditions did not
differ significantly on positive affect, F(1, 87) ⫽0.91, p⫽.343,
␩
2
⫽.01. The nostalgia and control condition differed signifi-
cantly on state nostalgia, but were approximately matched on
positive affect.
Effect of nostalgia on self-continuity. As hypothesized, par-
ticipants in the nostalgia condition (M⫽5.36, SD ⫽0.68) reported
higher self-continuity than those in the control condition (M⫽
4.48, SD ⫽1.10), F(1, 88) ⫽20.91, p⬍.001, ␩
2
⫽.19. Similar
to Experiments 1–2, correlational analyses involving the nostalgia
manipulation check showed that the more nostalgic participants
felt, the more self-continuity they reported, r(90) ⫽.53, p⬍.001.
Participants in the current experiment had a wider age range
than those in Experiments 1–2, allowing us to examine the role of
age. The age distribution in our sample was positively skewed (i.e.,
relatively few participants over the age of 50). We therefore
examined the conditional simple effect of nostalgia on self-
continuity for those in the 25th (28 years), 50th (median; 38 years),
and 75th (49 years) age percentile (i.e., we modeled the simple
effect of nostalgia for these three points on the age continuum).
Age was positively associated with self-continuity, B⫽.017,
SE ⫽.007, F(1, 86) ⫽5.63, p⫽.020. The Nostalgia ⫻Age
2
A bootstrapping analysis showed that the indirect effect of culture on
self-continuity via social connectedness was significant, ab ⫽.159, SE ⫽
.046, 95% CI [.072, .255]. These results are consistent with mediation of
the culture effect on self-continuity by social connectedness. It is possible
that more collectivist culture engenders a general sense of connectedness to
others (Cai, Sedikides, & Jiang, 2013;Sedikides, Gaertner, & Cai, 2015),
which in turn facilitates a narrative thread (via reflected appraisal or
inclusion processes) similar to what we proposed nostalgia facilitates.
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
529
NOSTALGIA, SELF-CONTINUITY, AND WELLBEING

interaction was not significant, F(1, 86) ⫽2.41, p⫽.125, ␩
2
⫽
.02. Supporting its generality, the conditional simple effect of
nostalgia was significant at the 25th, F(1, 86) ⫽18.66, p⬍.001,
50th, F(1, 86) ⫽20.25, p⬍.001, and 75th, F(1, 86) ⫽7.23, p⫽
.009 age percentile.
Mediation by social connectedness. Participants in the nos-
talgia condition (M⫽5.30, SD ⫽0.95) also reported stronger
social connectedness than those in the control condition (M⫽
4.16, SD ⫽1.40), F(1, 88) ⫽20.73, p⬍.001, ␩
2
⫽.19. This
indicates that social connectedness qualifies as a potential me-
diator of the nostalgia effect on self-continuity. A bootstrapping
analysis (Hayes, 2013, Model 4) confirmed that the indirect
effect of nostalgia on self-continuity via social connectedness
was significant, ab ⫽0.46, SE ⫽0.18, 95% CI [0.181, 0.869].
The direct effect was also significant, B⫽0.42, SE ⫽0.18,
95% CI [0.057, 0.791]. As expected (given that the nostalgia
and control conditions did not differ on positive affect), con-
trolling for positive affect by including it as a covariate did not
alter these results.
Experiment 3 therefore provided evidence that social connect-
edness mediates the effect of nostalgia on self-continuity, and does
so independently of positive affect.
Experiment 4: An Experimental-Causal-Chain
Approach
In Experiments 1–3, we used a measurement-of-mediation de-
sign to test whether the effect of nostalgia on self-continuity is
mediated by social connectedness. Results across the three ex-
periments supported the postulated nostalgia )social connect-
edness )self-continuity mediational model. However, this par-
ticular approach to testing mediation has attracted critical scrutiny
(Bullock, Green, & Ha, 2010;Fiedler, Schott, & Meiser, 2011;
Spencer et al., 2005). A limitation is that both the mediator (i.e.,
social connectedness) and the dependent variable (i.e., self-
continuity) are measured, which introduces uncertainty regarding
their causal ordering. Underscoring this issue, supplementary anal-
yses revealed that Experiments 1–3 also supported an alternative
mediational model, in which the order of social connectedness and
self-continuity was reversed (nostalgia )self-continuity )social
connectedness). Hence, it is vitally important to corroborate the
proposed causal effect of social connectedness on self-continuity.
Experiment 4 therefore supplemented the measurement-of-
mediation design that we implemented in the preceding experi-
ments with the experimental-causal-chain design advocated by
Spencer et al. (2005).
Given that Experiments 1–3 supplied evidence for a causal
effect of nostalgia (the independent variable) on social connected-
ness (the mediator), the key objective of Experiment 4 was to
examine the next link in the causal chain by testing the causal
effect of social connectedness (the mediator) on self-continuity
(the dependent variable). We operationalized social connectedness
in terms of loneliness (Baumeister & Leary, 1995;Leary, 2010).
We reasoned that high social connectedness would entail low
loneliness and vice versa. We predicted that high (compared to
low) social connectedness would raise self-continuity.
Method
Participants and design. Participants were 93 University of
Southampton undergraduates (82 females, 11 males). Their ages
ranged from 19 –50 years (M⫽20.45, SD ⫽4.70). We randomly
assigned them to experimental conditions (high vs. low social
connectedness).
Procedure and materials. We induced social connectedness
through an established manipulation (Wildschut et al., 2006;
Zhou et al., 2008). Participants completed the “Southampton
Loneliness Scale,” which comprised 15 statements drawn from
the UCLA Loneliness Scale (Russell, Peplau, & Cutrona, 1980).
For each statement, participants indicated whether they dis-
agreed (coded 0) or agreed (coded 1). In the high-connectedness
condition, the statements were phrased in a manner to elicit
disagreement (e.g., “I always feel that I am ‘out of tune’ with
the people around me”), whereas, in the low-connectedness
condition, the statements were phrased in a manner to elicit
agreement (e.g., “I sometimes feel that I am ‘out of tune’ with
the people around me”). As intended, participants in the high-
connectedness condition (M⫽2.15, SD ⫽2.29) agreed with
fewer statements than those in the low-connectedness condition
(M⫽8.77, SD ⫽3.02), F(1, 91) ⫽141.41, p⬍.001, ␩
2
⫽.61.
Following this, participants received false feedback. Those in
the high-connectedness condition learned that they were in the
12th percentile of the loneliness distribution and were therefore
“very low on loneliness” compared with other University of
Southampton undergraduates. Conversely, those in the low-
connectedness condition learned that they were in the 62nd
percentile of the distribution of loneliness and were therefore
“above average on loneliness” compared with other University
of Southampton undergraduates. Participants were then asked to
provide reasons for their score on a separate sheet of paper.
Next, participants completed the same measure of social con-
nectedness as in Experiments 1–3, which served as a manipulation
check (␣⫽.86, M⫽4.40, SD ⫽1.03). Finally, they completed
the same measure of self-continuity (SCI; ␣⫽.85, M⫽4.30,
SD ⫽1.00), as in Experiments 1–3.
Results and Discussion
Manipulation check. As intended, participants in the high-
connectedness condition reported higher social connectedness lev-
els (M⫽4.89, SD ⫽0.91) than those in the low-connectedness
condition (M⫽3.93, SD ⫽0.93), F(1, 91) ⫽25.04, p⬍.001,
␩
2
⫽.22. The social connectedness induction was effective.
Self-continuity. Participants in the high-connectedness condi-
tion (M⫽4.58, SD ⫽0.85) reported stronger self-continuity than
those in the low-connectedness condition (M⫽4.03, SD ⫽1.06),
F(1, 91) ⫽7.58, p⫽.007, ␩
2
⫽.08.
Taken together, Experiment 4 provided vital experimental evi-
dence for a causal effect of social connectedness on self-
continuity, as stipulated in Hypothesis 1. Of course, whereas this
finding fits with hypotheses guiding the research, it does not rule
out the possibility of a reciprocal causal relation between social
connectedness and self-continuity. We return to this issue in the
General Discussion.
Consistent with Hypothesis 1, Experiments 1– 4 demonstrated
that social connectedness mediates the effect of nostalgia on self-
continuity. We obtained these patterns across diverse experimental
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
530 SEDIKIDES ET AL.

procedures and across East-Asian (China) and Western (U.K.,
U.S.) samples. In the following two experiments, we tested Hy-
pothesis 2: that nostalgia-induced self-continuity confers eudai-
monic wellbeing. As a reminder, we define eudaimonic wellbeing
as reflecting the extent to which the person sees themselves as
functioning at an optimal and meaningful level (Ryan & Deci,
2001), and we operationalize it in terms of subjective vitality
(Ryan & Frederick, 1997).
Experiment 5: An Experimental-Causal-Chain
Approach
We know of no previous research that has manipulated self-
continuity and assessed its causal impact on eudaimonic wellbeing.
We did just that in Experiment 5, predicting that self-continuity
will increase eudaimonic wellbeing and thus aiming to obtain a
crucial piece of evidence in the putative causal chain (nostalgia )
social connectedness )self-continuity )eudaimonic wellbeing).
Method
Participants and design. Participants were 135 U.S. residents
(68 females, 65 males, 2 gender unreported), who were recruited
via Amazon’s MTurk and received $1.50 upon completion. Their
ages ranged from 18 –75 years (M⫽35.94, SD ⫽12.63). Partic-
ipants had a track record of a 95% or better job acceptance rate.
We randomly assigned them to the self-continuity or control
condition.
Procedure and materials. We adapted the self-continuity
manipulation from Weinstein, Deci, and Ryan (2011). This ma-
nipulation was consistent with our conceptual definition of self-
continuity (“a sense of connection between one’s past and one’s
present”). We began by asking participants to think of themselves
as they were 3 years ago (“Think about yourself 3 years ago and
who you were as a person”). We did so in order to keep the
temporal distance from the present constant across all participants
regardless of age. We then proceeded with instructions according
to experimental condition. Participants in the self-continuity con-
dition focused on the continuity between their past and present self
(“Spend some time writing about how you feel connected with
your past. Describe the way in which important aspects of your
personality remain the same across time”), whereas those in the
control condition focused on their past self only (“Spend some
time writing about who you were in the past. Describe important
aspects of your personality in the past”).
Next, participants completed the SCI (␣⫽.89, M⫽4.48, SD ⫽
1.26), as in Experiments 1– 4, as a manipulation check of self-
continuity. Subsequently, participants completed a measure of
state-level eudaimonic wellbeing: the Subjective Vitality Scale
(SVS; Ryan & Frederick, 1997). This scale assesses the state of
feeling alive and alert—a state that is indicative of eudaimonic
wellbeing (Ryan & Deci, 2001). It consists of seven items (e.g., “I
feel alive and vital,” “I have energy and spirit”) rated on a 6-point
scale (1 ⫽strongly disagree,6⫽strongly agree;␣⫽.92, M⫽
4.11, SD ⫽1.19).
Results and Discussion
Manipulation check. As intended, participants in the self-
continuity condition reported higher levels of self-continuity (M⫽
4.85, SD ⫽1.08) compared to those in the control condition (M⫽
4.08, SD ⫽1.32), F(1, 132) ⫽13.85, p⬍.001, ␩
2
⫽.10.
Eudaimonic wellbeing. Participants in the self-continuity
condition (M⫽4.32, SD ⫽1.10) reported greater eudaimonic
wellbeing than those in the control condition (M⫽3.87, SD ⫽
1.25), F(1, 133) ⫽4.83, p⫽.03, ␩
2
⫽.04. In all, we obtained
evidence for a causal effect of self-continuity on state-level eudai-
monic wellbeing.
The wide age range of participants allowed us to examine the
role of age. As in the MTurk sample of Experiment 3, the age
distribution was positively skewed. We therefore examined the
conditional simple effect of self-continuity on eudaimonic wellbe-
ing at the 25th (26 years), 50th (median; 31 years), and 75th (42
years) age percentile. Age was not significantly associated with
eudaimonic wellbeing, B⫽.008, SE ⫽.008, F(1, 129) ⫽0.97,
p⫽.335. More importantly, the Self-Continuity ⫻Age interaction
was not significant, F(1, 129) ⫽0.01, p⫽.904, ␩
2
⫽.0001. The
conditional simple effect of self-continuity on eudaimonic wellbe-
ing was marginal at the 25th, F(1, 129) ⫽2.76, p⫽.099, 50th,
F(1, 129) ⫽3.69, p⫽.057, and 75th, F(1, 129) ⫽3.10, p⫽.081
age percentile.
Experiment 6: Testing the Full Causal Sequence
In Experiment 6, we examined the full causal sequence from
nostalgia to social connectedness to self-continuity to eudaimonic
wellbeing. Experiment 6, then, allowed us to test in full the
hypothesis that nostalgia will confer eudaimonic wellbeing bene-
fits through its effect on social connectedness and self-continuity.
We induced nostalgia with the Event Reflection Task, and then
proceeded to measure social connectedness, self-continuity, and
eudaimonic wellbeing.
We also addressed a potential limitation of several prior exper-
iments pertaining to the phrasing of the nostalgia manipulation
check. Participants in Experiments 1–3 completed self-report as-
sessments of state nostalgia (e.g., “Right now, I am feeling quite
nostalgic”). It is possible that the phrasing of these manipulation
checks introduced experimental demand. More precisely, partici-
pants who were instructed to recall a nostalgic event from their
past may have felt compelled to endorse the manipulation check
items even when they did not experience nostalgia (of course, this
limitation is likely less pertinent to Experiment 1 where nostalgia
was induced via song lyrics). To address this issue in Experiment
6, instead of the self-report ratings of state nostalgia, judges coded
the participant-generated autobiographical narratives for intensity
of expressed nostalgia.
Method
Participants. Participants were 110 English-speaking U.S.
residents (55 females, 54 males, 1 gender unreported), who were
recruited via Amazon’s MTurk and received $1.50 upon comple-
tion. Their ages ranged from 18 – 80 years (M⫽35.52, SD ⫽
11.62). Participants had a track record of a 95% or better job
acceptance rate. We randomly assigned them to the nostalgia or
control condition.
Procedure and materials. We induced nostalgia with the
Event Reflection Task (nostalgic vs. ordinary autobiographical
recollection; Sedikides et al., 2015). Then, participants completed
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
531
NOSTALGIA, SELF-CONTINUITY, AND WELLBEING

measures of social connectedness, self-continuity, and eudaimonic
wellbeing. The measure of social connectedness was the same as
in Experiments 1– 4 (␣⫽.90, M⫽3.96, SD ⫽1.18). As before,
we assessed self-continuity with the SCI (␣⫽.79, M⫽4.31,
SD ⫽0.94). Finally, we assessed eudaimonic wellbeing with the
SVS (␣⫽.92, M⫽3.73, SD ⫽0.99), as in Experiment 5.
Results and Discussion
Manipulation check. We transcribed the participant-
generated autobiographical narratives. Five judges (unaware of
experimental condition) coded these narratives for intensity of
expressed nostalgia (“How much nostalgia did the person who
wrote this narrative experience?”; 1 ⫽very little,7⫽very much;
interrater reliability: ␣⫽.98). As intended, narratives written by
participants in the nostalgia condition (M⫽5.82, SD ⫽1.28)
expressed more nostalgia than narratives written by participants in
the control condition (M⫽1.52, SD ⫽0.79, F(1, 108) ⫽465.24
p⬍.001, ␩
2
⫽.81. This manipulation check did not rely on
self-report, yet provided evidence for the validity of the Event
Reflection Task. Consistent with Experiments 1–3, correlational
analyses involving coded nostalgia revealed that the more nostal-
gia participants expressed in their narratives, the more self-
continuity they reported, r(110) ⫽.39, p⬍.001.
Relations among nostalgia, social connectedness, self-
continuity, and wellbeing. We present zero-order correlations
among the study variables in Table 1. One-way ANOVAs revealed
that participants in the nostalgia condition (M⫽4.21, SD ⫽1.09)
reported higher social connectedness than those in the control
condition (M⫽3.74, SD ⫽1.22), F(1, 108) ⫽4.41, p⫽.038,
␩
2
⫽.04. Participants in the nostalgia condition (M⫽4.65, SD ⫽
0.84) also reported higher self-continuity than those in the control
condition (M⫽4.02, SD ⫽0.93), F(1, 108) ⫽13.78, p⬍.001,
␩
2
⫽.11. Further, participants in the nostalgia condition (M⫽
4.00, SD ⫽0.91) reported greater eudaimonic wellbeing than those
in the control condition (M⫽3.50, SD ⫽1.01), F(1, 108) ⫽7.33,
p⫽.008, ␩
2
⫽.06.
The wide age range of participants allowed us to examine the
role of age. As in the preceding MTurk samples (Experiments 3
and 5), the age distribution was positively skewed. We therefore
examined the conditional simple effect of nostalgia on self-
continuity and eudaimonic wellbeing at the 25th (27 years), 50th
(median; 32 years), and 75th (41 years) age percentile. As in
Experiment 3, age was positively associated with self-continuity,
B⫽.016, SE ⫽.007, F(1, 105) ⫽4.80, p⫽.031.The Nostalgia ⫻
Age interaction effect on self-continuity was not significant, F(1,
105) ⫽0.81, p⫽.370, ␩
2
⫽.0001. Attesting to its generality, the
conditional simple effect of nostalgia on self-continuity was sig-
nificant at the 25th, F(1, 105) ⫽6.05, p⫽.016, 50th, F(1, 105) ⫽
10.89, p⫽.001, and 75th, F(1, 105) ⫽13.99, p⬍.001 age
percentile. Age was marginally associated with greater eudaimonic
wellbeing, B⫽.013, SE ⫽.008, F(1, 105) ⫽2.92, p⫽.091. More
importantly, the Nostalgia ⫻Age interaction effect on eudaimonic
wellbeing was not significant, F(1, 105) ⫽0.01, p⫽.914, ␩
2
⫽
.0001. Supporting its generality, the conditional simple effect of
nostalgia on eudaimonic wellbeing was significant at the 25th, F(1,
105) ⫽4.04, p⫽.047, 50th, F(1, 105) ⫽5.95, p⫽.017, and 75th,
F(1, 105) ⫽5.62, p⫽.019 age percentile.
The main effects of nostalgia on, respectively, social connect-
edness, self-continuity, and eudaimonic wellbeing are represented
as zero-order correlations in the first column of Table 1. This table
further shows that social connectedness was significantly corre-
lated with self-continuity, and that both social connectedness and
self-continuity were significantly correlated with eudaimonic well-
being. Older (compared to younger) participants experienced more
social connectedness (r[110] ⫽.20, p⫽.042) and more self-
continuity (r[110] ⫽.18, p⫽.057). However, controlling for
gender and age did not alter the above-described pattern of zero-
order correlations (Table 1, above diagonal). These findings set the
stage for testing the mediational model depicted in Figure 1.
Mediational analyses. We estimated the Figure 1 model with
AMOS. We calculated bias corrected 95% bootstrap CIs and
bootstrap standard errors for direct and indirect effects. We present
tests of direct and indirect effects in Table 2. All but one direct
effect (i.e., paths in Figure 1) were significant. Nostalgia increased
social connectedness (path a) and self-continuity (above and be-
yond social connectedness; path b), and did not significantly
increase eudaimonic wellbeing (above and beyond social connect-
edness and self-continuity; path c). Social connectedness predicted
increased self-continuity (above and beyond nostalgia; path d), and
also predicted increased eudaimonic wellbeing (above and beyond
nostalgia and self-continuity; path e). Finally, self-continuity pre-
dicted increased eudaimonic wellbeing (above and beyond nostal-
gia and social connectedness; path f).
In addition to these direct effects, all indirect effects in Figure 1
were significant. Consistent with preceding evidence that the link
between nostalgia and self-continuity is mediated by social con-
nectedness, there was an indirect effect of nostalgia on self-
continuity via social connectedness (path a
ⴱ
path d). Relevant to
the link between nostalgia and eudaimonic wellbeing, there was a
significant total indirect effect of nostalgia on eudaimonic wellbe-
ing via social connectedness and self-continuity. This total indirect
effect was partitioned into a significant indirect effect via social
connectedness (a
ⴱ
e) and a significant indirect effect via self-
continuity. The indirect effect via self-continuity, in turn, was
partitioned into a significant indirect effect that was independent of
social connectedness (b
ⴱ
f) and a significant indirect effect that
was mediated by social connectedness (a
ⴱ
d
ⴱ
f). The latter indirect
effect (a
ⴱ
d
ⴱ
f) provides further evidence for the postulated
extended causal sequence leading from nostalgia to social connect-
edness to self-continuity to eudaimonic wellbeing.
We proceeded to trim the nonsignificant direct path from nos-
talgia to eudaimonic wellbeing and then calculate fit indices for the
resultant nonsaturated model using AMOS (Figure 1, minus path
Table 1
Zero-Order and Partial Correlations in Experiment 6
Measure 1 2 3 4
1. Nostalgia manipulation — .20
ⴱ
.33
ⴱⴱⴱ
.23
ⴱ
2. Social connectedness .20
ⴱ
— .67
ⴱⴱⴱ
.72
ⴱⴱⴱ
3. Self-continuity .34
ⴱⴱⴱ
.68
ⴱⴱⴱ
— .64
ⴱⴱⴱ
4. Wellbeing .25
ⴱⴱ
.73
ⴱⴱⴱ
.65
ⴱⴱⴱ
—
Note. The nostalgia manipulation was coded ⫺1⫽control, 1 ⫽nostal-
gia. Correlations below the diagonal are zero-order correlations (n⫽110).
Correlations above the diagonal are partial correlations, controlling for
gender and age (n⫽109).
ⴱ
p⬍.05.
ⴱⴱ
p⬍.01.
ⴱⴱⴱ
p⬍.001.
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
532 SEDIKIDES ET AL.

c). This model provided extremely good fit: ␹
2
(1, N⫽110) ⫽
0.75, p⫽.387, SRMSR ⫽.02, RMSEA ⫽.00, CFI ⫽1.00. Thus,
Experiment 6 revealed a total effect of nostalgia on social con-
nectedness, self-continuity, and eudaimonic wellbeing (see Table
1). Additionally, we found support for a model in which nostalgia
exerted an indirect effect on eudaimonic wellbeing via social
connectedness and concomitant self-continuity.
3
Supplementary analyses: Does self-continuity moderate the
effect of nostalgia on eudaimonic wellbeing? Iyer and Jetten
(2011) proposed and found that, rather than mediating the bene-
ficial effect of nostalgia on various outcomes linked to wellbeing,
self-continuity acts as a moderator, such that nostalgia strengthens
those outcomes when self-continuity is high but weakens them when
self-continuity is low. Specifically, Iyer and Jetten (Studies 2–3)
manipulated nostalgia and self-continuity and then measured per-
ceived academic obstacles, excitement about being at university,
sadness about being at university, interest in new opportunities, and
interest in familiar opportunities. In a longitudinal investigation
(Study 1), these authors assessed nostalgia and self-continuity and
then measured perceived academic obstacles and satisfaction with life
(an index of hedonic wellbeing) over time.
To examine the possibility that self-continuity moderates the
beneficial effect of nostalgia on eudaimonic wellbeing, we tested
the Nostalgia ⫻Self-Continuity interaction effect on eudaimonic
wellbeing (controlling for its constituent main effects and for
social connectedness). The Nostalgia ⫻Self-Continuity interac-
tion effect was not significant, B⫽0.095, SE ⫽0.071, 95% CI
[⫺0.047, 0.236], F(1, 106) ⫽1.77, p⫽.186.
4
Self-continuity
mediated, but did not moderate, the beneficial effect of nostalgia
on eudaimonic wellbeing.
General Discussion
Nostalgia functions to fortify the self-system and confer well-
being benefits. We tested this general proposition, examining
empirically the notions that nostalgia fosters self-continuity and
eudaimonic wellbeing by increasing social connectedness. We
relied on a converging operations approach (Campbell & Fiske,
1959) to nostalgia (varying experimental manipulations and ma-
nipulation check assessments), on samples from multiple cultures,
and on samples collected in differing settings. Our aim was to test
a causal chain (Spencer et al., 2005), namely: nostalgia )social
connectedness )self-continuity )eudaimonic wellbeing.
Summary of Findings
The construct of self-continuity has a long history in philosophy
(Parfit, 1971) and psychology (James, 1890). It is considered
essential for identity or one’s selfhood, as it synthesizes or inte-
grates diverse past experiences to provide the sense of sameness
(Atchley, 1989). Self-continuity is a defining feature of the human
self (Breakwell, 1986), with some authors describing its attainment
as a human imperative (Vignoles, 2011). At first blush one might
not think of the propensity to reflect nostalgically on days gone by
to be an effective catalyst toward the experience of self-continuity.
Yet prior work suggests that it is (Sedikides, Wildschut, Rout-
ledge, & Arndt, 2015;Sedikides, Wildschut, Gaertner, Routledge,
& Arndt, 2008). In the present research, we asked how nostalgia
3
We tested an alternative model in which eudaimonic wellbeing pre-
ceded social connectedness and self-continuity in the postulated causal
sequence. This model was analogous to the original model (Figure 1, minus
path c) but with eudaimonic wellbeing in the place of social connectedness,
social connectedness in the place of self-continuity, and self-continuity in
the place of eudaimonic wellbeing. We calculated fit indices for this
alternative model in AMOS. This model provided marginal fit: ␹
2
(1, N⫽
110) ⫽6.86, p⫽.009, SRMSR ⫽.05, RMSEA ⫽.23, CFI ⫽.97. Within
a set of models for the same data, the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC;
Akaike, 1974) can be used to compare competing models that need not be
nested. The model with the smallest AIC value is considered the best fitting
model. For the alternative model, we found AIC ⫽24.86. By comparison,
for the original model, we found AIC ⫽18.75. Note that the fit statistics
for the alternative model are identical to those for a second alternative
model, in which eudaimonic wellbeing follows social connectedness but
precedes self-continuity. The reason for this is that the two alternative
models differ only in the direction of the link between social connectedness
and eudaimonic wellbeing but are otherwise identical. Any two models that
have the same paths between the same variables will have the same fit,
even if some paths are in a different direction. We conclude that the
original model is preferable to alternative models in which vitality precedes
social connectedness and/or self-continuity.
4
The fact that, in the preceding analyses, self-continuity mediated the
effect of nostalgia on eudaimonic wellbeing may raise the question whether
it is appropriate, in the present analysis, to treat self-continuity as a
moderator of said effect. It is therefore important to note that, in a
moderation analysis, the independent variable and the moderator need not
be orthogonal (i.e., uncorrelated). Hayes’s (2013) Model 4 describes a
situation in which the same variable operates simultaneously as mediator
and as moderator. This model is analogous to the one we tested. Specifi-
cally, the dependent variable (in our case, eudaimonic wellbeing) is re-
gressed on the independent variable (nostalgia), the mediator (self-
continuity), and the interaction between the independent variable and the
mediator (Nostalgia ⫻Self-Continuity). The latter effect tests for moder-
ation.
Figure 1. Mediational model tested in Experiment 6.
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
533
NOSTALGIA, SELF-CONTINUITY, AND WELLBEING

fosters self-continuity and what the wellbeing implications of this
process are. We expected nostalgia to be associated with, and
foster, higher self-continuity (Davis, 1979). We obtained confir-
matory evidence (Experiments 1–3, 6), replicating prior findings
(Sedikides, Wildschut, Routledge, & Arndt, 2015). Nostalgizing
imbues the self-system with self-continuity.
We also asked how nostalgia elicits self-continuity. A prominent
function (out of several) that nostalgia serves is social connected-
ness (Sedikides, Wildschut, Routledge, Arndt et al., 2015). Nos-
talgic narratives enliven important figures or social relationships,
while the content of these narratives reflects crucial links between
past and present selves and highlights one’s life trajectory through
reflected appraisal, social inclusion, and relational self processes.
On this basis, we expected that social connectedness would me-
diate the effect of nostalgia on self-continuity (Hypothesis 1). A
combination of measurement-of-mediation and experimental-
causal-chain approaches (Experiments 1– 4, 6) lent support to the
hypothesis. These findings build on those of Sedikides, Wildschut,
Routledge, and Arndt (2015, Studies 3– 4) by pinpointing the
relational content of nostalgic memories as a core means by which
they enhance self-continuity. It will be useful to explore further
whether this happens via semantic processes (e.g., activating self-
attributes that derive from reflected appraisal or social inclusion;
Aron & Nardone, 2012;Wallace & Tice, 2012) or episodic pro-
cesses (e.g., activating memories of related sociocultural rituals
across time; Berntsen & Rubin, 2004). Sedikides, Wildschut,
Routledge, and Arndt (2015, Studies 1–2) also found that nostalgia
was triggered by experiences of negative discontinuity (e.g., stress-
ful life changes), consistent with other evidence that nostalgia
serves a homeostatic function (e.g., to counteract loneliness or
existential anxiety; Routledge, Arndt, Sedikides, & Wildschut,
2008;Zhou et al., 2008). Future studies could examine whether in
times of discontinuity people especially recruit nostalgic memories
of close others (as opposed to places or personal achievements,
e.g.) in order to restore self-continuity. Overall, “peopling” the
mind with nostalgic memories of close others helps to weave a
sense of connection between one’s past and present.
Finally, we wondered about the downstream implications of the
effect of nostalgia (via social connectedness) on self-continuity.
Taking off from the hedonic wellbeing (Chandler et al., 2003) and
existential equanimity (Landau et al., 2009) benefits of self-
continuity, we proposed Hypothesis 2. According to this, nostalgia
fosters self-continuity by augmenting social connectedness. Self-
continuity, in turn, confers eudaimonic wellbeing (i.e., subjective
vitality). A combination of an experimental-causal-chain and
measurement-of-mediation approaches (Experiment 5– 6) yielded
support to the hypothesis. These findings extend the aforemen-
tioned benefits of self-continuity to a new aspect of wellbeing.
That is, when people perceive consistency between their past and
present they feel alive and vital—a key marker of human actual-
ization (Ryan & Deci, 2001). The findings also add to the body of
evidence on the psychological significance of nostalgia. Past re-
search has often found nostalgia to boost positive affect—an
indicator of hedonic wellbeing (Hepper et al., 2012;Verplanken,
2012;Wildschut et al., 2006). However, nostalgia is a complex and
bittersweet emotion (Sedikides & Wildschut, in press) that also
entails traces of negative affect (Hepper et al., 2012;Stephan et al.,
2012;Wildschut et al., 2006), and so its function is unlikely to
center around hedonic pleasure. The eudaimonic perspective on
wellbeing focuses not on pleasure but on realizing one’s true
potential across key aspects of life, which allows one to feel
“intensely alive and authentic” (Ryan & Deci, 2001, p. 146).
Researchers have found that people report a sense of authenticity
associated with their nostalgic recollections (Baldwin & Landau,
2014;Stephan et al., 2012), and the present results suggest that
nostalgia, by increasing social connectedness and self-continuity,
promotes subjective vitality. Together, the evidence points to
nostalgia serving to foster eudaimonic (as opposed to hedonic)
wellbeing.
The reported studies involved mostly experimental but also
correlational methods, tested female and male university students
and community members of varying ages, and included partici-
pants from four countries (China, The Netherlands, U.K., U.S.).
Nostalgia fostered self-continuity through social connectedness,
Table 2
Tests of Direct and Indirect Effects in Mediational Model of Experiment 6
Effect
Figure 1
path Coeff. SE
95% CI
LL UL
Direct effects
Nostalgia )Social connectedness a .233
ⴱ
.109 .015 .439
Nostalgia )Self-continuity b .196
ⴱ
.065 .067 .326
Nostalgia )Wellbeing c .057 .071 ⫺.077 .201
Social connectedness )Self-continuity d .514
ⴱ
.055 .401 .619
Social connectedness )Wellbeing e .450
ⴱ
.076 .301 .600
Self-continuity )Wellbeing f .276
ⴱ
.081 .121 .440
Indirect effect: Nostalgia )Self-continuity
Via social connectedness a
ⴱ
d.120
ⴱ
.060 .010 .250
Indirect effect: Nostalgia )Wellbeing
Total .192
ⴱ
.073 .058 .344
Via social connectedness a
ⴱ
e.105
ⴱ
.055 .009 .226
Via self-continuity .087
ⴱ
.034 .035 .175
Independent of social connectedness b
ⴱ
f.054
ⴱ
.023 .019 .112
Mediated by social connectedness a
ⴱ
d
ⴱ
f.033
ⴱ
.020 .004 .086
Note.CI⫽confidence interval; Coeff. ⫽unstandardized path coefficient; n⫽110.
ⴱ
p⬍.05.
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
534 SEDIKIDES ET AL.

and, by so doing, conferred eudaimonic wellbeing. Nostalgia pro-
motes the vitality of the self-system by nurturing self-continuity.
Whereas the direction of the effect of nostalgia on self-
continuity was consistent across studies, its magnitude varied.
Specifically, the effect size in Experiment 1 (␩
2
⫽.40) was
considerably larger than the more homogenous effect sizes in
Experiment 2 (overall ␩
2
⫽.04; U.K. sample ␩
2
⫽.06; Chinese
sample ␩
2
⫽.01), Experiment 3 (␩
2
⫽.19), and Experiment 6
(␩
2
⫽.11). We attribute this to the fact that, whereas Experiments
2, 3, and 6 implemented the Event Reflection Task (Sedikides,
Wildschut, Routledge, Arndt et al., 2015) to induce nostalgia,
Experiment 1 used song lyrics. Manipulation check results from
Experiments 1–3 (Experiment 6 used a different manipulation
check) are consistent with the possibility that the song-lyrics
induction is more potent than the Event Reflection Task (effect
sizes: ␩
2
⫽.55, ␩
2
⫽.04 [U.K. sample ␩
2
⫽.01; Chinese sample
␩
2
⫽.05], and ␩
2
⫽.26, respectively).
Implications for Future Research
Our research has at least four sets of implications. The first
refers to more refined testing of the two hypotheses. The second
concerns individual differences both in nostalgia proneness and in
self-continuity. The third implication pertains to different forms of
continuity: collective continuity and future continuity. The final
implication involves practical applications.
More refined tests of the hypotheses. Hypothesis 1 posited
mediation by social connectedness of the effect of nostalgia on
self-continuity. The mediational status of social connectedness was
supported. In addition, experimental evidence affirmed the causal
impact of social connectedness on self-continuity (Experiment 4).
Nevertheless, the evidence, albeit consistent with the idea that
social connectedness mediates the effect of nostalgia on self-
continuity, does not necessarily rule out an alternative sequence—
that self-continuity also mediates the effect of nostalgia on social
connectedness (Bullock et al., 2010;Fiedler et al., 2011). Testing
the reciprocal causal relation between social connectedness and
self-continuity (path d in Figure 1) is a priority for future investi-
gations. Moreover, in several studies, the indirect effects were
unexpectedly accompanied by a remaining significant nostalgia )
self-continuity direct effect. Therefore nostalgia may also boost
self-continuity via another mechanism(s). Meaning in life is a
viable candidate. Nostalgic recollections refer to personally rele-
vant events from one’s past— events imbued with meaning. Nos-
talgizing indeed increases perceptions of life as meaningful (Rout-
ledge et al., 2011,2012). Meaning may constitute the proverbial
glue that links events from one’s life to each other all the way to
the present. Alternatively, nostalgic memories (regardless of their
social or nonsocial content) might alter one’s perception of time
and thereby self-continuity by bringing the past psychologically
closer. This might occur via the vivid concrete memory linking
past to present (Stephan et al., 2012) or by motivated cognitions
serving to bring a desired past self closer (Ross & Wilson, 2002).
Thus, it may be that nostalgia not only enhances self-continuity
through connectedness, but that these other influences of nostalgia
result in self-continuity, which in turn feeds back to boost social
connectedness. Indeed, it seems quite possible that dynamic vari-
ables such as self-continuity, social connectedness, and meaning
would have reciprocal and rippling implications across the psy-
chological system.
Hypothesis 2 pertained to the eudaimonic wellbeing implica-
tions of nostalgia-induced self-continuity. Future research would
do well to extend these implications to broader indices of eudai-
monic wellbeing (e.g., gratitude, compassion), to indices of hedo-
nic wellbeing (e.g., depression, anxiety, satisfaction with life), to
exploration and creativity, as well as integration with one’s socio-
cultural context. Emerging findings implicate a pivotal role of
nostalgia in outcomes such as inspiration (Stephan et al., 2015),
and hence understanding the extent to which self-continuity con-
tributes to such outcomes would clarify how nostalgia may be a
springboard to growth and enrichment. Extensions to physical
health would also broaden the scope of Hypothesis 2, especially
given emerging evidence for the link between psychological ad-
justment and cardiovascular health (Boehm & Kubzansky, 2012)
and between psychological adjustment and physical activity, ab-
stinence from tobacco, and compliance with prescribed medica-
tions (Ng et al., 2012).
Individual differences. Nostalgia had a beneficial influence
on eudaimonic wellbeing (through self-continuity). However, nos-
talgia may not be equally beneficial to all. Verplanken (2012)
reported that individuals who habitually worry (compared to those
who do so rarely) experienced positive affect (an index of hedonic
wellbeing) immediately following nostalgia induction, but showed
symptoms of depressive affect and anxiety soon thereafter. It is
possible that these negative delayed symptoms may have been due
to lower (rather than higher) self-continuity. That is, deeper or
prolonged nostalgic reflection may decrease the perception of
self-continuity among habitual worriers.
Iyer and Jetten’s (2011) research also speaks to this issue in
finding that self-continuity moderates the beneficial influence of
nostalgia on wellbeing-related outcomes. However, this research
was more pertinent to homesickness (i.e., the extent to which
homesick first-year college students wished they were back in high
school) than nostalgia. Homesickness is a different emotion, re-
ferring to adjustment challenges (e.g., separation anxiety) that are
associated with young individuals’ transitions away from the home
environment. Indeed, the homesickness literature has been follow-
ing its own trajectory independently of the nostalgia literature
(Hendrickson, Rosen, & Aune, 2011;Kerns, Brumariu, & Abra-
ham, 2008;Thurber & Walton, 2007). Also, Iyer and Jetten de-
fined self-continuity as social-identity continuity, namely “the
extent to which students maintained their group membership from
their home community during the transition to university” (p. 97;
Study 1) or the extent to which students maintained links with their
home communities (Studies 2–3). When we tested Iyer and
Jetten’s moderational argument in the context of our research, we
found no support for it. Regardless, the overall issue, that nostalgia
may not be beneficial for all, is worthy of further empirical
scrutiny.
Forms of continuity. We focused in this article on continuity
of the individual self. Highly relevant is continuity of the collective
or group self (Sani, Bowe, & Herrera, 2008). For example, col-
lective continuity is associated with wellbeing, physical health,
and harmonious intergroup dynamics (Haslam, Jetten, Postmes, &
Haslam, 2009). It would be timely to explore the role of collective
nostalgia (i.e., nostalgia about shared group experiences; Wild-
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
535
NOSTALGIA, SELF-CONTINUITY, AND WELLBEING

schut, Bruder, Robertson, Van Tilburg, & Sedikides, 2014)asa
precursor of collective continuity.
Nostalgia impacts continuity between past and present, but may
also impact continuity between one’s present and one’s future
(Peetz & Wilson, 2008), given that nostalgia is an approach- or
growth-oriented emotion (Baldwin & Landau, 2014;Stephan et al.,
2014). Future continuity has been shown to predict longevity
among older adults (Fry & Debats, 2011) and also higher accu-
mulation of financial assets (Ersner-Hershfield, Garton, Ballard,
Samanez-Larkin, & Knutson, 2009). It would be fitting to explore
(at the individual-self or collective-self level) whether nostalgia
also elicits this form of continuity, with its ensuing physical-health
and monetary benefits.
Practical applications. The current findings have interven-
tional potential. Nostalgia, for example, could be induced in various
settings (e.g., nursing homes, hospitals, prisons) with the aim to
strengthen self-continuity, thus conferring wellbeing or adjustment
(and perhaps even physical health) benefits. Prescreening would en-
sure that individuals unlikely to profit from nostalgia (e.g., habitual
worriers) received an alternative treatment. Nostalgia-based interven-
tions may be particularly useful for persons facing life stressors or
transitions that threaten to undermine self-continuity and increase
discontinuity (e.g., going off to university, job loss, divorce, death of
a spouse).
The current findings also suggest that nostalgia has potential use in
interventions aimed at increasing physical activity and ultimately
health. Abeyta and Routledge (in press) found that, starting around the
age of 40, nostalgia decreases subjective age (how old one feels) and
increases perceptions of youthfulness. Further, nostalgia-induced
youthfulness predicts positive perceptions of physical health, confi-
dence about one’s physical abilities, and optimism regarding one’s
future health. These effects may result from nostalgia making middle
and older-aged adults feel connected to their younger selves. Might
integrating nostalgia into exercise programs and physical rehabilita-
tion therapies promote compliance and persistence? Future work
should consider this possibility as it is widely recognized that physical
activity benefits psychological and physical health.
These proposed practical implications raise a legitimate question
concerning the longevity of nostalgia’s beneficial effects. We dem-
onstrated that a single nostalgic recollection increased momentarily
eudaimonic wellbeing via self-continuity. But can nostalgia effect
long-term benefits? Relevant to this question, Fleeson (2001) concep-
tualized traits as density distributions of states. The vital implication
of his perspective is that, across time, repeated brief episodes of
nostalgia can increase the central tendency of one’s eudaimonic
wellbeing distribution. Indeed, if one can harvest even a single rec-
ollection repeatedly throughout life to (re)generate psychological ben-
efits, the positive consequences of nostalgia can last for a lifetime.
This may be what Dostoyevsky (1880/2007, p. 868) had in mind
when he wrote, in The Brothers Karamozov: “If a man carries many
such memories with him into life, he is safe to the end of his days, and
if one has only one good memory left in one’s heart, even that may
sometime be the means of saving us.”
Coda
Nostalgia is a self-relevant, predominantly positive, and social
emotion that is experienced by everyone and can serve vital
psychological functions. The present research demonstrated one
such function. Nostalgia fosters social connectedness, which, via
increases in self-continuity, promotes eudaimonic wellbeing.
References
Abeyta, A. A., & Routledge, C. (in press). Fountain of youth: The impact
of nostalgia on youthfulness and implications for health. Self and
Identity.
Abeyta, A., Routledge, C., Roylance, C., Wildschut, R. T., & Sedikides, C.
(2015). Attachment-related avoidance and the social and agentic content
of nostalgic memories. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships,
32, 406 – 413. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0265407514533770
Akaike, H. (1974). A new look at statistical model identification. IEEE
Transactions on Automatic Control, 19, 716 –723. http://dx.doi.org/10
.1109/TAC.1974.1100705
Andersen, S. M., & Chen, S. (2002). The relational self: An interpersonal
social-cognitive theory. Psychological Review, 109, 619 – 645.
Aron, A., & Nardone, N. (2012). Self and close relationships. In M. R.
Leary & J. P. Tangney (Eds.), Handbook of self and identity (2nd ed., pp.
520 –531). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Atchley, R. C. (1989). A continuity theory of normal aging. The Geron-
tologist, 29, 183–190. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geront/29.2.183
Baldwin, M., & Landau, M. (2014). Exploring nostalgia’s influence on
psychological growth: Evidence for mediation by positive emotion and
consequences for self-perceptions and behavioral intentions. Self and
Identity, 13, 162–177. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15298868.2013.772320
Barrett, F. S., Grimm, K. J., Robins, R. W., Wildschut, T., Sedikides, C.,
& Janata, P. (2010). Music-evoked nostalgia: Affect, memory, and
personality. Emotion, 10, 390 – 403. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0019006
Batcho, K. I. (1998). Personal nostalgia, world view, memory, and emo-
tionality. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 87, 411– 432. http://dx.doi.org/
10.2466/pms.1998.87.2.411
Batcho, K. I. (2007). Nostalgia and the emotional tone and content of song
lyrics. The American Journal of Psychology, 120, 361–381.
Baumeister, R. F., & Leary, M. R. (1995). The need to belong: Desire for
interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. Psycho-
logical Bulletin, 117, 497–529. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.117
.3.497.4
Berntsen, D., & Rubin, D. C. (2004). Cultural life scripts structure recall
from autobiographical memory. Memory & Cognition, 32, 427– 442.
http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/BF03195836
Boehm, J. K., & Kubzansky, L. D. (2012). The heart’s content: The
association between positive psychological well-being and cardiovascu-
lar health. Psychological Bulletin, 138, 655– 691. http://dx.doi.org/10
.1037/a0027448
Boym, S. (2001). The future of nostalgia. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Breakwell, G. M. (1986). Coping with threatened identities. London, UK:
Methuen.
Brislin, R. W. (1980). Translation and content analysis of oral and written
material. In H. Triandis & J. W. Berry (Eds.), Handbook of cross-
cultural psychology: Methodology (pp. 389 – 444). New York, NY:
Cambridge University Press.
Bullock, J. G., Green, D. P., & Ha, S. E. (2010). Yes, but what’s the
mechanism? (Don’t expect an easy answer). Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 98, 550 –558. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0018933
Cai, H., Sedikides, C., & Jiang, L. (2013). Familial self as a potent source
of affirmation: Evidence from China. Social Psychological & Person-
ality Science, 4, 529 –537. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1948550612469039
Campbell, D. T., & Fiske, D. W. (1959). Convergent and discriminant
validation by the multitrait-multimethod matrix. Psychological Bulletin,
56, 81–105. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0046016
Chandler, M. J., Lalonde, C. E., Sokol, B. W., & Hallett, D. (2003).
Personal persistence, identity development and suicide: A study of
native and non-native North American adolescents. Monographs of the
Society for Research in Child Development, 68, 1–138.
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
536 SEDIKIDES ET AL.

Cheung, W. Y., Wildschut, T., Sedikides, C., Hepper, E. G., Arndt, J., &
Vingerhoets, A. J. J. M. (2013). Back to the future: Nostalgia increases
optimism. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 39, 1484 –1496.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0146167213499187
Coenen, L. H. M., Hedebouw, L., & Semin, G. R. (2006). Measuring
language abstraction: The linguistic category model (LCM). Retrieved
from http://www.cratylus.org/resources/uploadedFiles/1151434261594-
8567.pdf
D’Argembeau, A., Feyers, D., Majerus, S., Collette, F., Van der Linden,
M., Maquet, P., & Salmon, E. (2008). Self-reflection across time:
Cortical midline structures differentiate between present and past selves.
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 3, 244 –252. http://dx.doi
.org/10.1093/scan/nsn020
Davis, F. (1979). Yearning for yesterday: A sociology of nostalgia. New
York, NY: Free Press.
Dostoyevsky, F. (2007). The brothers Karamazov. London, UK: Word-
sworth Editions. (Original work published 1880)
Dubreuil, P., Forest, J., & Courcy, F. (2014). From strengths use to work
performance: The role of harmonious passion, subjective vitality, and
concentration. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 9, 335–349. http://
dx.doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2014.898318
Erikson, E. (1968). Identity: Youth and crisis. New York, NY: Norton.
Ersner-Hershfield, H., Garton, M. T., Ballard, K., Samanez-Larkin, G. R.,
& Knutson, B. (2009). Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow: Individual
differences in future self-continuity account for saving. Judgment and
Decision Making, 4, 280 –286.
Fiedler, K., Schott, M., & Meiser, T. (2011). What mediation analysis can
(not) do. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 47, 1231–1236.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2011.05.007
Fleeson, W. (2001). Toward a structure- and process-integrated view of
personality: Traits as density distribution of states. Journal of Person-
ality and Social Psychology, 80, 1011–1027.
Fry, P. S., & Debats, D. L. (2011). Cognitive beliefs and future time
perspectives: Predictors of mortality and longevity. Journal of Aging
Research, 2011, Article ID 67902. http://dx.doi.org/10.4061/2011/
367902
Habermas, T., & Bluck, S. (2000). Getting a life: The emergence of the life
story in adolescence. Psychological Bulletin, 126, 748 –769. http://dx
.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.126.5.748
Hart, C. M., Sedikides, C., Wildschut, T., Arndt, J., Routledge, C., &
Vingerhoets, A. J. J. M. (2011). Nostalgic recollections of high and low
narcissists. Journal of Research in Personality, 45, 238 –242. http://dx
.doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2011.01.002
Haslam, S. A., Jetten, J., Postmes, T., & Haslam, C. (2009). Social identity,
health and well-being: An emerging agenda for applied psychology.
Applied Psychology, 58, 1–23. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1464-0597
.2008.00379.x
Hayes, A. F. (2013). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and condi-
tional process analysis. A regression-based approach. New York, NY:
New York: Guilford Press.
Hendrickson, B., Rosen, D., & Aune, R. K. (2011). An analysis of friend-
ship networks, social connectedness, homesickness and satisfaction lev-
els of international students. International Journal of Intercultural Re-
lations, 35, 281–295. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2010.08.001
Hepper, E. G., Ritchie, T. D., Sedikides, C., & Wildschut, T. (2012).
Odyssey’s end: Lay conceptions of nostalgia reflect its original Homeric
meaning. Emotion, 12, 102–119. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0025167
Hepper, E. G., Robertson, S., Wildschut, T., Sedikides, C., & Routledge, C.
(2015). Time capsule: Nostalgia shields wellbeing from limited time
horizons. Manuscript under review, University of Surrey, Surrey, UK.
Hepper, E. G., Wildschut, T., Sedikides, C., Ritchie, T. D., Yung, Y.-F.,
Hansen, N.,...Zhou, X. (2014). Pancultural nostalgia: Prototypical
conceptions across cultures. Emotion, 14, 733–747. http://dx.doi.org/10
.1037/a0036790
Hertz, D. G. (1990). Trauma and nostalgia: New aspects on the coping of
aging Holocaust survivors. The Israel Journal of Psychiatry and Related
Sciences, 27, 189 –198.
Holak, S. L., & Havlena, W. J. (1992). Nostalgia: An exploratory study of
themes and emotions in the nostalgic experience. In J. F. Sherry, Jr., &
B. Sternthal (Eds.), Advances in consumer research (Vol. 19, pp. 380 –
387). Provo, UT: Association for Consumer Research.
Holak, S. L., & Havlena, W. J. (1998). Feelings, fantasies, and memories:
An examination of the emotional components of nostalgia. Journal of
Business Research, 42, 217–226. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0148-
2963(97)00119-7
Iyer, A., & Jetten, J. (2011). What’s left behind: Identity continuity
moderates the effect of nostalgia on well-being and life choices. Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology, 101, 94 –108. http://dx.doi.org/10
.1037/a0022496
James, W. (1890). The principles of psychology (Vol. 1). London, UK:
Macmillan. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/11059-000
Kerns, K. A., Brumariu, L. E., & Abraham, M. M. (2008). Homesickness
at summer camp: Associations with the mother– child relationship, so-
cial self-concept, and peer relationships in middle childhood. Merrill-
Palmer Quarterly, 54, 473– 498.
Lampinen, J. M., Odegard, T. N., & Leding, J. K. (2004). Diachronic
disunity. In D. R. Beike, J. M. Lampinen, & D. A. Behrend (Eds.), The
self in memory (pp. 227–253). New York, NY: Psychology Press.
Landau, M. J., Greenberg, J., & Solomon, S. (2008). The never-ending
story: A terror management perspective on the psychological function of
self-continuity. In F. Sani (Ed.), Self-continuity: Individual and collec-
tive perspectives (pp. 87–100). New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.
Landau, M. J., Greenberg, J., & Sullivan, D. (2009). Defending a coherent
autobiography: When past events appear incoherent, mortality salience
prompts compensatory bolstering of the past’s significance and the
future’s orderliness. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35,
1012–1020. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0146167209336608
Landau, M. J., Meier, B. P., & Keefer, L. A. (2010). A metaphor-enriched
social cognition. Psychological Bulletin, 136, 1045–1067. http://dx.doi
.org/10.1037/a0020970
Leary, M. R. (2010). Affiliation, acceptance, and belonging: The pursuit of
interpersonal connection. In S. T. Fiske, D. T. Gilbert, & G. Lindzey
(Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (Vol. 2, 5th ed., pp. 864 – 897).
Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9780470561119
.socpsy002024
MacCallum, R. C., Roznowski, M., Mar, C., & Reith, J. V. (1994).
Alternative strategies for cross-validation of covariance structure mod-
els. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 29, 1–32. http://dx.doi.org/10
.1207/s15327906mbr2901_1
Madell, G. (1981). The identity of the self. Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh
University Press.
Neisser, U. (1988). Five kinds of self-knowledge. Philosophical Psychol-
ogy, 1, 35–59. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09515088808572924
Ng, J. Y. Y., Ntoumanis, N., Thøgersen-Ntoumani, C., Deci, E. L., Ryan,
R. M., Duda, J. L., & Williams, G. C. (2012). Self-determination theory
applied to health contexts: A meta-analysis. Perspectives on Psycholog-
ical Science, 7, 325–340. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1745691612447309
Nunnally, J. C., & Bernstein, I. H. (1994). Psychometric theory (3rd ed.).
New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Parfit, D. (1971). Personal identity. The Philosophical Review, 80, 3–27.
http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2184309
Pearsall, J. (Ed.). (1998). The new Oxford dictionary of English. Oxford,
UK: Oxford University Press.
Peetz, J., & Wilson, A. E. (2008). The temporally extended self: The
relation of past and future selves to current identity, motivation, and goal
pursuit. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 2, 2090 –2106.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2008.00150.x
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
537
NOSTALGIA, SELF-CONTINUITY, AND WELLBEING

Pennebaker, J. W., Booth, R. J., & Francis, M. E. (2007). Linguistic inquiry
and word count: LIWC2007. Operator’s manual. Austin, TX: LIWC.net
Reid, C. A., Green, J. D., Wildschut, T., & Sedikides, C. (2015). Scent-
evoked nostalgia. Memory, 23, 157–166. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/
09658211.2013.876048
Rosch, E. (1978). Principles of categorization. In E. Rosch & B. B. Lloyd
(Eds.), Cognition and categorization (pp. 27– 48). Hillsdale, NJ: Erl-
baum.
Ross, M., & Wilson, A. E. (2002). It feels like yesterday: Self-esteem,
valence of personal past experiences, and judgments of subjective dis-
tance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82, 792– 803.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.82.5.792
Routledge, C., Arndt, J., Sedikides, C., & Wildschut, T. (2008). A blast
from the past: The terror management function of nostalgia. Journal of
Experimental Social Psychology, 44, 132–140. http://dx.doi.org/10
.1016/j.jesp.2006.11.001
Routledge, C., Arndt, J., Wildschut, T., Sedikides, C., Hart, C. M., Juhl, J.,
. . . Schlotz, W. (2011). The past makes the present meaningful: Nos-
talgia as an existential resource. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 101, 638 – 652. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0024292
Routledge, C., Sedikides, C., Wildschut, T., & Juhl, J. (2013). Finding
meaning in the past: Nostalgia as an existential resource. In K. Mark-
man, T. Proulx, & M. Lindberg (Eds.), The psychology of meaning (pp.
297–316). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Routledge, C., Wildschut, T., Sedikides, C., & Juhl, J. (2013). Nostalgia as
a resource for psychological health and well-being. Social and Person-
ality Psychology Compass, 7, 808 – 818. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/spc3
.12070
Routledge, C., Wildschut, T., Sedikides, C., Juhl, J., & Arndt, J. (2012).
The power of the past: Nostalgia as a meaning-making resource. Mem-
ory, 20, 452– 460. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2012.677452
Russell, D., Peplau, L. A., & Cutrona, C. E. (1980). The revised UCLA
Loneliness Scale: Concurrent and discriminant validity evidence. Jour-
nal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39, 472– 480. http://dx.doi
.org/10.1037/0022-3514.39.3.472
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2001). On happiness and human potentials: A
review of research on hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing. Annual Re-
view of Psychology, 52, 141–166. http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev
.psych.52.1.141
Ryan, R. M., & Frederick, C. (1997). On energy, personality, and health:
Subjective vitality as a dynamic reflection of well-being. Journal of
Personality, 65, 529 –565. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1997
.tb00326.x
Sani, F., Bowe, M., & Herrera, M. (2008). Perceived collective continuity:
Seeing groups as temporally enduring entities. In F. Sani (Ed.), Self-
continuity: Individual and collective perspectives (pp. 159 –172). New
York, NY: Psychology Press.
Sedikides, C., Gaertner, L., & Cai, H. (2015). On the panculturality of
self-enhancement and self-protection motivation: The case for the uni-
versality of self-esteem. In A. J. Elliot (Ed.), Advances in motivation
science (Vol. 2, pp. 185–241). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/bs.adms.2015.04.002
Sedikides, C., & Wildschut, T. (in press). Nostalgia: A bittersweet emotion
that confers psychological health benefits. In J. Johnson & A. Wood
(Eds.), The handbook of positive clinical psychology. Hoboken, NJ:
Wiley.
Sedikides, C., Wildschut, T., Arndt, J., & Routledge, C. (2008). Nost-
algia: Past, present, and future. Current Directions in Psychological
Science, 17, 304 –307. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8721.2008.
00595.x
Sedikides, C., Wildschut, T., & Baden, D. (2004). Nostalgia: Conceptual
issues and existential functions. In J. Greenberg, S. Koole, & T. Pyszc-
zynski (Eds.), Handbook of experimental existential psychology (pp.
200 –214). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Sedikides, C., Wildschut, T., Gaertner, L., Routledge, C., & Arndt, J.
(2008). Nostalgia as enabler of self-continuity. In F. Sani (Ed.), Self-
continuity: Individual and collective perspectives (pp. 227–239). New
York, NY: Psychology Press.
Sedikides, C., Wildschut, T., Routledge, C., & Arndt, J. (2015). Nostalgia
counteracts self-discontinuity and restores self-continuity. European
Journal of Social Psychology, 45, 52– 61. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ejsp
.2073
Sedikides, C., Wildschut, T., Routledge, C., Arndt, J., Hepper, E. G., &
Zhou, X. (2015). To nostalgize: Mixing memory with affect and desire.
Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 51, 189 –273. http://dx.doi
.org/10.1016/bs.aesp.2014.10.001
Sedikides, C., Wildschut, T., Routledge, C., Arndt, J., & Zhou, X. (2009).
Buffering acculturative stress and facilitating cultural adaptation: Nos-
talgias as a psychological resource. In R. S. Wyer, Jr., C.-Y. Chiu, &
Y.-Y. Hong (Eds.), Understanding culture: Theory, research, and ap-
plication (pp. 361–378). New York, NY: Psychology Press.
Seehusen, J., Cordaro, F., Wildschut, T., Sedikides, C., Routledge, C.,
Blackhart, G.,...Vingerhoets, A. J. J. M. (2013). Individual differences
in nostalgia proneness: The integrating role of the need to belong.
Personality and Individual Differences, 55, 904 –908. http://dx.doi.org/
10.1016/j.paid.2013.07.020
Simmons, J. P., Nelson, L. D., & Simonsohn, U. (2011). False-positive
psychology: Undisclosed flexibility in data collection and analysis al-
lows presenting anything as significant. Psychological Science, 22,
1359 –1366. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797611417632
Spencer, S. J., Zanna, M. P., & Fong, G. T. (2005). Establishing a causal
chain: Why experiments are often more effective than mediational
analyses in examining psychological processes. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 89, 845– 851. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-
3514.89.6.845
Stephan, E., Sedikides, C., & Wildschut, T. (2012). Mental travel into the
past: Differentiating recollections of nostalgic, ordinary, and positive
events. European Journal of Social Psychology, 42, 290 –298. http://dx
.doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.1865
Stephan, E., Sedikides, C., Wildschut, T., Cheung, W. Y., Routledge, C., &
Arndt, J. (2015). Nostalgia-evoked inspiration: Mediating mechanisms
and motivational implications. Personality and Social Psychology Bul-
letin, 41, 1395–1410. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0146167215596985
Stephan, E., Wildschut, T., Sedikides, C., Zhou, X., He, W., Routledge, C.,
. . . Vingerhoets, A. J. J. M. (2014). The mnemonic mover: Nostalgia
regulates avoidance and approach motivation. Emotion, 14, 545–561.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0035673
Tekin, E., & Satici, B. (2014). An investigation of the predictive role of
authenticity on subjective vitality. Educational Sciences: Theory and
Practice, 14, 2063–2070. http://dx.doi.org/10.12738/estp.2014.6.2216
Thurber, C. A., & Walton, E. (2007). Preventing and treating homesick-
ness. Pediatrics, 119, 192–201. http://dx.doi.org/10.1542/peds.2006-
2781
Troll, L. E., & Skaff, M. M. (1997). Perceived continuity of self in very old
age. Psychology and Aging, 12, 162–169. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/
0882-7974.12.1.162
Turner, R. N., Wildschut, T., Sedikides, C., & Gheorghiu, M. (2013).
Combating the mental health stigma with nostalgia. European Journal of
Social Psychology, 43, 413– 422. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.1952
van Dijke, M., Wildschut, T., Leunissen, J., & Sedikides, C. (2015).
Nostalgia buffers the negative impact of low procedural injustice on
cooperation. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes,
127, 15–29. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2014.11.005
van Tilburg, W. A. P., Sedikides, C., & Wildschut, T. (2015). The mne-
monic muse: Nostalgia fosters creativity through openness to experi-
ence. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 59, 1–7. http://dx.doi
.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2015.02.002
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
538 SEDIKIDES ET AL.

Verplanken, B. (2012). When bittersweet turns sour: Adverse effects of
nostalgia on habitual worries. European Journal of Social Psychology,
42, 285–289. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.1852
Vignoles, V. L. (2011). Identity motives. In S. J. Schwartz, K. Luyckx, &
V. L. Vignoles (Eds.), Handbook of identity theory and research (pp.
403– 432). New York, NY: Springer. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-
4419-7988-9_18
Vignoles, V. L., Regalia, C., Manzi, C., Golledge, J., & Scabini, E. (2006).
Beyond self-esteem: Influence of multiple motives on identity construc-
tion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90, 308 –333. http://
dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.90.2.308
Wallace, H. M., & Tice, D. M. (2012). Reflected appraisal through a
21st-century looking glass. In M. R. Leary & J. P. Tangney (Eds.),
Handbook of self and identity (2nd ed., pp. 124 –140). New York, NY:
Guilford Press.
Waterman, A. S. (1993). Two conceptions of happiness: Contrasts of
personal expressiveness (eudaimonia) and hedonic enjoyment. Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 678 – 691. http://dx.doi.org/
10.1037/0022-3514.64.4.678
Weinstein, N., Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2011). Motivational determi-
nants of integrating positive and negative past identities. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 100, 527–544. http://dx.doi.org/10
.1037/a0022150
Wiggins, D. (2001). Sameness and substance renewed. New York, NY: Cam-
bridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511612756
Wildschut, T., Bruder, M., Robertson, S., van Tilburg, W. A., & Sedikides,
C. (2014). Collective nostalgia: A group-level emotion that confers
unique benefits on the group. Journal of Personality and Social Psy-
chology, 107, 844 – 863. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0037760
Wildschut, T., Sedikides, C., Arndt, J., & Routledge, C. (2006). Nostalgia:
Content, triggers, functions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychol-
ogy, 91, 975–993. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.91.5.975
Wildschut, T., Sedikides, C., & Cordaro, F. (2011). Self-regulatory inter-
play between negative and positive emotions: The case of loneliness and
nostalgia. In I. Nyklicek, A. J. J. M. Vingerhoets, & M. Zeelenberg
(Eds.), Emotion regulation and wellbeing (pp. 67– 83). New York, NY:
Springer. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-6953-8_5
Wildschut, T., Sedikides, C., Routledge, C., Arndt, J., & Cordaro, F.
(2010). Nostalgia as a repository of social connectedness: The role of
attachment-related avoidance. Journal of Personality and Social Psy-
chology, 98, 573–586. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0017597
Williams, B. (1970). The self and future. The Philosophical Review, 79,
161–180. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2183946
Wittgenstein, L. (1953/1967). Philosophical investigations (3rd ed.). (G.
E. M. Anscombe, Trans.). Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
Zauberman, G., Ratner, R. K., & Kim, B. K. (2009). Memories as assets:
Strategic memory protection in choice over time. Journal of Consumer
Research, 35, 715–728. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/592943
Zhou, X., Sedikides, C., Wildschut, T., & Gao, D.-G. (2008). Counteract-
ing loneliness: On the restorative function of nostalgia. Psychological
Science, 19, 1023–1029. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008
.02194.x
Zhou, X., Wildschut, T., Sedikides, C., Chen, X., & Vingerhoets, A. J. J.
M. (2012). Heartwarming memories: Nostalgia maintains physiological
comfort. Emotion, 12, 678 – 684. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0027236
Zhou, X., Wildschut, T., Sedikides, C., Shi, K., & Feng, C. (2012).
Nostalgia: The gift that keeps on giving. Journal of Consumer Research,
39, 39 –50. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/662199
Received February 12, 2014
Revision received September 23, 2015
Accepted September 30, 2015 䡲
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
539
NOSTALGIA, SELF-CONTINUITY, AND WELLBEING