From nostalgia to collective nostalgia
Nostalgia was long regarded as an illness or a negative emotion, but Wildschut and colleagues (2006) showed that it is a bittersweet, mainly warm emotion centered on recalling meaningful events shared with close others, and that it raises positive mood, self-esteem and social connectedness. Sedikides and colleagues (2008) described nostalgia as a psychological resource against threats such as loneliness and loss of meaning. Building on this, Wildschut and colleagues (2014) showed that when people think of themselves as group members, collective nostalgia, longing for the past the group shared, arises as a group-level emotion distinct from personal nostalgia.
Group cohesion and identity continuity
In the experiments of Wildschut and colleagues (2014), participants who felt collective nostalgia evaluated the ingroup more positively and were more willing to help ingroup members and act on behalf of the group. These effects were not explained by personal nostalgia. Smeekes and Verkuyten (2015) concluded that collective identity continuity, the sense that the group has persisted from the past to the present, provides stability in uncertain times, and that collective nostalgia is one way of preserving this continuity.
National nostalgia and exclusion
Collective nostalgia also has a darker side. Smeekes, Verkuyten and Martinovic (2015) showed in Dutch data that national nostalgia, longing for the country's good old days, led to opposition to Muslims' expressive rights via autochthony beliefs that those who were there first are the rightful owners. Gest, Reny and Mayer (2018) reported that in the United States and Britain, nostalgic deprivation, the feeling that one's group has lost status compared with the past, predicts support for the radical right. This shows that relative deprivation can arise from comparison not only with other groups today but with one's own group in the past. Boym (2001) distinguished restorative nostalgia, which seeks to rebuild the past, from reflective nostalgia, which contemplates it.
FAQ
- What is collective nostalgia in simple terms?
- Longing for the good old days your group shared, such as "our school" or "our country."
- Is collective nostalgia a good emotion?
- It can strengthen group cohesion, but national nostalgia can also lead to exclusion of outgroups or support for radical politics.
Sources reviewed: 2026-10-26
References
- Boym, S. (2001). The future of nostalgia. Basic Books. Distinguishes restorative and reflective nostalgia.
- Wildschut, T., Sedikides, C., Arndt, J., & Routledge, C. (2006). Nostalgia: Content, triggers, functions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91(5), 975–993. Foundational study of personal nostalgia.
- Sedikides, C., Wildschut, T., Arndt, J., & Routledge, C. (2008). Nostalgia: Past, present, and future. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 17(5), 304–307. Concise review of nostalgia's functions.
- Wildschut, T., Bruder, M., Robertson, S., van Tilburg, W. A. P., & Sedikides, C. (2014). Collective nostalgia: A group-level emotion that confers unique benefits on the group. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 107(5), 844–863. The key study of collective nostalgia as group emotion.
- Smeekes, A., & Verkuyten, M. (2015). The presence of the past: Identity continuity and group dynamics. European Review of Social Psychology, 26(1), 162–202. Identity continuity and the role of the past.
- Smeekes, A., Verkuyten, M., & Martinovic, B. (2015). Longing for the country's good old days: National nostalgia, autochthony beliefs, and opposition to Muslim expressive rights. British Journal of Social Psychology, 54(3), 561–580. National nostalgia and opposition to minority rights.
- Gest, J., Reny, T., & Mayer, J. (2018). Roots of the radical right: Nostalgic deprivation in the United States and Britain. Comparative Political Studies, 51(13), 1694–1719. Nostalgic deprivation and radical-right support.