Nostalgia as a Resource in an Unfair World

Abstract

Unfairness forms a highly aversive event for members of organizations, thus stimulating negative responses such as lowered cooperation and attempts to harm the collective. We investigated whether nostalgia helps people cope with unfairness. In two laboratory experiments we manipulated unfairness using the rule of voice in the decisions of an authority and measured chronic individual differences in nostalgia (Study 1) or primed variations in nostalgia (Study 2). Both studies showed that unfairness lowers cooperation only among non-nostalgic participants. Study 2 also showed that unfairness increases rumination, but only among non-nostalgic participants. In Study 3, an organizational field study, we replicated these findings using a broader measure of unfairness and focusing on antisocial behavior as outcome variable. Study 3 also addressed why nostalgia functions as a resource in dealing with unfairness by showing that this effect is mediated by the experience that one’s existence is meaningful.