Nostalgia increases punitiveness by intensifying moral concern.

We addressed the relation between nostalgia and moral judgment or behavior. We hypothesized that nostalgia, a social emotion, increases moral concern (H1), nostalgia intensifies punitiveness against moral transgressors (H2), and that the nostalgia-punitiveness link is mediated by moral concern (H3). We conducted three cross-sectional (Studies 1, 2, 4) and one experimental (Study 3) investigations (N = 1145). The investigations, involving distinct operationalizations of the relevant constructs (nostalgia, moral concern, punitiveness) and diverse samples (U.S., Canadian, and European Prolific workers, French business school students, Dutch community members), yielded results consistent with the hypotheses. Nostalgia keeps one's moral compass in check. The findings enrich the emotions and morality literatures.

Nostalgia makes people eat healthier.

Nostalgia is a prominently used emotion in marketing. This work adds to the burgeoning literature on how feelings of nostalgia influence consumption behavior by investigating how nostalgia influences eating attitudes and behaviors. Two experiments showed that people consumed more and reported more favorable attitudes towards healthy food when feeling nostalgic (versus neutral). Nostalgia also diminished the consumption of unhealthy food. Process evidence revealed that nostalgia's differential influence on the consumption of healthy and unhealthy foods is due to increased perceptions of social support. Since perceptions of social support increase self-control resources, individuals were better able to make healthier food choices when in a nostalgic (versus neutral) state. The findings provided behavioral evidence that nostalgia positively influences healthy eating attitudes and behavior, and established perceived social support as an important mechanism underlying these effects. This work suggests that nostalgia can be a useful tool not only in our commercial marketing efforts, but also in public policy, in that it can help promote healthy food intake and well-being.

Mirrors in the head: cultural variation in objective self-awareness.

In a society where there are pronounced concerns for "face," people come to be especially focused on how they are being evaluated by others. We reasoned that Japanese should conceive of themselves in terms of how they think they are considered by others. This hypothesis was tested by contrasting Japanese and North American participants who were in front of a mirror with those who were not. In two studies, replicating past research, North Americans who were in front of a mirror were more self-critical and were less likely to cheat than were those who were not in front of a mirror. In contrast, Japanese participants were unaffected by the presence of the mirror.