Days of Future Past: Concerns for the Group’s Future Prompt Longing for Its Past (and Ways to Reclaim It)

Abstract

In this article, we summarize recent research on collective angst (i.e., concern for one’s group’s future vitality) and collective nostalgia (i.e., sentimental longing for the in-group’s past) and emphasize their interconnections and predictive utility. We also put forth the supposition that the source of the collective angst that group members are feeling can influence the content of collective nostalgia (i.e., what group members are longing for), which has consequences for the attitudes and actions that group members will support to protect the group’s vitality. Political rhetoric tends to capitalize on the relation between these emotions by making specific existential threats salient to elicit specific associated collective nostalgizing, followed by promises to “bring back the good old days”—days when the source of the threat was (ostensibly) absent. In sum, the content of collective nostalgia matters for understanding what action tendencies group members will support to assuage the specific (perceived) threats to their group.