Blinded by wistfulness: on how nostalgia strengthens attitudes

Across four studies, we explored how feeling nostalgic about an attitude object impacts the metacognitive characteristics of the attitude toward that object and how those metacognitions predict the evaluation's underlying strength. In each study, participants reflected on and evaluated a song or television show that either did or did not elicit nostalgia. Across these studies, we found support for the hypotheses that nostalgic attitude objects are viewed more positively, appraised with greater attitudinal importance, and exhibited less objective ambivalence. In Study 4, we observed that nostalgic attitudes are associated with greater behavioural intentions and that this relationship was mediated both by attitudinal importance and objective ambivalence. These studies contribute to our understanding of how nostalgia affects attitude formation processes.

The role of dialecticism in objective and subjective attitudinal ambivalence

Although attitudes are often considered positive or negative evaluations, people often have both positive and negative associations with a target object or issue, and when people are ambivalent, they are typically presumed to find the experience aversive because they are motivated to hold clear, univalent attitudes. Cross-cultural research, however, has shown cultural variation in the propensity for dialectical thinking, which is characterized by a tolerance for contradiction. Two studies examined the role of dialectical thinking tendencies in the occurrence of attitudinal ambivalence and how much people subjectively experience their state of ambivalence. Study 1 measured individual differences in dialectical thinking within a culture, and Study 2 compared participants across two cultures (United States and Taiwan) that differ in dialecticism. Across studies, greater dialectical thinking was associated with holding both positive and negative evaluations of the same topic (objective ambivalence) and weaker correlations between objective ambivalence and subjective reports of being conflicted (subjective ambivalence).

The Stability of Moralized Attitudes Over Time

When people perceive a moral basis for an attitude, that attitude tends to remain durable when directly challenged. But are moral concerns only influential in the moment or does moralization also signal an attitude that endures over time? Five longitudinal studies considering attitudes toward 19 different topics tested whether attitudes are more stable over time when people report that they are more morally based. Across studies, we find support for the hypothesis that degree of attitude moralization moderates the consistency of attitude reports over time with more moralized attitudes being more stable. These effects of moralization also hold when controlling for other metacognitive predictors of attitude strength, including certainty, ambivalence, importance, knowledge, ease of retrieval, and self-definition. An analysis of all studies together supports the reliability of the hypothesized effect but also suggests that it varies by topic. Implications for models of attitude moralization and attitude strength are discussed.