Nostalgia is a fond longing for the past that has been shown to increase feelings of meaning, social connectedness, and self-continuity. Although nostalgia for personal memories provides intra- and interpersonal benefits, there may be negative consequences of group-based nostalgia on the perception and acceptance of others. The presented research examined national nostalgia (a form of collective nostalgia), and its effects on group identification and political attitudes in the United States.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDoes nostalgia for one's time at university predict current intentions to engage with the university? In Study 1, United States participants' nostalgia for their university experience (university nostalgia) at a southern public university predicted stronger intentions to socialize with fellow alumni, attend a future reunion, volunteer for their university, and donate money to their university. Study 2 replicated these findings with alumni from a northeastern private university, and extended them by finding that the links between university nostalgia and university engagement emerged even when controlling for the positivity of university experience. In both studies, feelings of university belonging mediated most of the associations between university nostalgia and university engagement.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSelective reporting practices (SRPs)-adding, dropping, or altering study elements when preparing reports for publication-are thought to increase false positives in scientific research. Yet analyses of SRPs have been limited to self-reports or analyses of pre-registered and published studies. To assess SRPs in social psychological research more broadly, we compared doctoral dissertations defended between 1999 and 2017 with the publications based on those dissertations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn the Human Penguin Project (N = 1755), 15 research groups from 12 countries collected body temperature, demographic variables, social network indices, seven widely-used psychological scales and two newly developed questionnaires (the Social Thermoregulation and Risk Avoidance Questionnaire (STRAQ-1) and the Kama Muta Frequency Scale (KAMF)). They were collected to investigate the relationship between environmental factors (e.g.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMounting evidence suggests that experiences of forgiveness vary across cultures. However, culturally sensitive conceptualizations of forgiveness lack empirical support, in part because psychometrically sound instruments designed to capture unique aspects of forgiveness in non-Western cultures are rare. For this reason, we developed the Collectivist-Sensitive Trait Forgivingness Scale (TFS-CS), which is designed to measure trait forgivingness within societies characterized by a blend of individualistic and collectivistic worldviews.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTwo experiments examined how exposure to superhero images influences both prosociality and meaning in life. In Experiment 1 ( = 246) exposed individuals to scenes with superhero images or neutral images. Individuals primed with superhero images reported greater helping intentions relative to the control group, which, in turn, were associated with increased meaning in life (indirect effect only; no direct effect).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFour studies tested the proposition that mindfulness and its training fostered prosociality toward ostracized strangers. In discovery Study 1, dispositional mindfulness predicted greater empathic concern for, and more helping behavior toward, an ostracized stranger. Using an experimental design, Study 2 revealed that very briefly instructed mindfulness, relative to active control instructions, also promoted prosocial responsiveness to an ostracized stranger.
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