KOREASCHOLAR

Nostalgia refers to the sentimental longing for the valued past (Sedikides, Wildschut, & Baden, 2004). It is considered a bittersweet emotion, involving both wistful joy and sadness (Sedikides et al., 2004). Nostalgia is also a social emotion. Nostalgic memories typically center on social activities involving the self and close others (Wildschut et al., 2010). Prior research has mainly focused on the social and emotional nature of nostalgic narratives, and researchers have only recently started to investigate the motivations triggered by the process of recalling nostalgic narratives. For example, recalling a nostalgic event can heighten people’s motivation to savor such an experience and prolong it (Huang, Huang, & Wyer, 2016). In the current research, we posit that thinking about nostalgic events can trigger another motivation, namely, a desire to revive the past. Whenever people experience nostalgic feelings, they are likely to perceive differences between the present and their memorable past and desire to go back in time (Hepper et al., 2012; Sedikides et al., 2004). This motivation, once activated, can lead people to take actions to change their current state in the hope of reviving the past (Koole & Jostmann, 2004; Kuhl, 1985). This tendency of taking actions to make changes may generalize to subsequent unrelated situations (Kruglanski et al., 2002), and consequently increase consumer switching behavior (Jiang, Zhan, & Rucker, 2014). These predictions were tested across five studies in various consumption contexts. Our findings contribute to consumer research in two important ways, (a) by demonstrating a novel motivational impact of nostalgia on consumer behavior, and (b) by delineating a systematic influence of an unexplored but pervasive emotional factor— nostalgia—on consumer switching behavior. This research also offers practical implications. Conventional wisdom suggests that nostalgia can make consumers prefer products reminiscent of the “old days”. Our findings show that nostalgia can have broader implications for consumer choices and marketers may use it to manage consumer switching behavior.

• Zhongqiang (Tak) Huang(University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong)
• Xun (Irene) Huang(Nanyang Technological University, Singapore)
• Yuwei Jiang(Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong)