Fighting ageism through nostalgia

Abstract

Two experiments tested whether nostalgia is as a resource for fighting ageism. In Experiment 1, younger adults who recalled a nostalgic (vs. ordinary) encounter with an older adult showed a more positive attitude toward older adults, mediated by greater inclusion of older adults in the self (inclusion of outgroup in the self; IOGS). In Experiment 2, these findings were replicated and extended with a subtle nostalgia manipulation. Younger adults identified an older, familiar adult. Then, they wrote about an encounter with this older adult that was characterised by either central (e.g., "keepsakes," "childhood") or peripheral (e.g., "wishing,""daydreaming") features of the construct of nostalgia (i.e., prototype). Participants who recalled a central (vs. peripheral) nostalgic encounter reported greater social connectedness, which predicted increased IOGS. In turn, increased IOGS was associated with lower desire to avoid older adults. Several alternative explanations for the intergroup benefits of nostalgia were ruled out. The research established that nostalgia qualifies as a resource for combatting ageism.

Ageism Linked to Culture, Not Demographics: Evidence From an 8-Billion-Word Corpus Across 20 Countries

“…The train has left the station on the demographic reality: Little can be done about slowing the pace of population aging or increasing the fertility rate that remains stubbornly low in many developed countries. Instead, cultural mindsets are more malleable, as priming studies have shown, and individual-level interventions to decrease interpersonal ageism have achieved considerable success ( Lytle et al, 2020 ; Turner et al, 2018 ). Additionally, priming with implicit age stereotypes has been shown to effectively increase the physical performance of older adults ( Levy et al, 2014 ).…”

Longing is in the memory of the beholder: Collective nostalgia content determines the method members will support to make their group great again

“…However, collective nostalgia may also serve to benefit intergroup relations. For example, Turner et al (2018) found that nostalgic memory that is focused on shared experience with an outgroup member yields reduced prejudice towards the outgroup. Additionally, research has shown that some Americans report high levels of nostalgia for the 1960s, a decade known for its openness and freedom (Wilson, 2005).…”

“…Other studies (e.g., Cheung et al, 2017;Smeekes et al, 2015) have used items that directly mention nostalgia for the ingroup's past, but still only assess the extent to which the group-based emotion is experienced as a whole (e.g., "When thinking about [the ingroup], to what extent do you feel nostalgic about the way [ingroup members] were in the past"). Even in Turner et al (2018) where the researchers focused participants' attention on a specific aspect of the ingroup's past (i.e., a shared past with an outgroup), they were simply asked if they "feel nostalgic at the moment".…”

Nostalgia Proneness and the Collective Self

“…First, it is important to distinguish between nostalgia for experiences from one's personal past (i.e., the focus of our present studies) and nostalgia for the ostensibly glorious past of one's group (e.g., national nostalgia). Proneness to nostalgia for one's personal past is negatively correlated with prejudice against outgroups (Smeekes, 2015;Cheung et al, 2017a), and recalling a personally nostalgic (compared to ordinary) experience with a specific outgroup member reduces prejudice toward the entire outgroup (Turner et al, 2012(Turner et al, , 2013(Turner et al, , 2018. By contrast, nostalgia for the past of one's group (e.g., "How often do you long for the good old days of the country?")…”