Diamonds and rust: The affective ambivalence of Nostalgia.

Affective ambivalence is the simultaneous experience of oppositely valenced emotions, such as happiness and sadness. Historic writings on the valence of nostalgia have proposed that nostalgia can best be conceptualized as an ambivalent emotion. A growing body of research provides empirical evidence for this proposal. Here, I review and summarize this evidence that nostalgia is an ambivalent emotion, albeit more positive than negative. I end by discussing implications and future research directions.

Nostalgia in organizations.

Scholars have proposed that nostalgia plays various important roles in organizations. At present, there is no comprehensive overview of the role of nostalgia in this context. To help develop such an overview, we review research on personal nostalgia, insofar as it includes outcomes that are organizationally relevant, and research on organizational nostalgia. We propose a model that summarizes the processes through which nostalgia operates in organizations. In this model, we propose that threatening circumstances such as injustice or organizational change evoke organizational (and possibly personal) nostalgia, this evoked nostalgia subsequently counteracts the negative effects of threat on outcomes such as organizational identification and experienced work meaningfulness. We end by discussing implications and future research directions.

Organizational nostalgia lowers turnover intentions by increasing work meaning: The moderating role of burnout.

We report 3 studies addressing the relevance of organizational nostalgia for the meaning that employees ascribe to their work (work meaning). We hypothesized, and found, that organizational nostalgia enhances work meaning and thereby reduces turnover intentions. In Study 1, an employee survey, spontaneously experienced organizational nostalgia was associated with higher work meaning. In Study 2, an organizational-nostalgia induction increased work meaning, which subsequently predicted lowered turnover intentions. In Study 3, an organizational-nostalgia induction increased work meaning and thereby lowered turnover intentions, especially among employees who reported relatively high levels of burnout. When burnout is high, organizational nostalgia functions as a rich source of meaning that benefits employees' work experience. (PsycINFO Database Record