Constantine Sedikides

We concerned with the emerging construct “future self-continuity” and its psychological consequences. We hypothesized, in particular, that future self-continuity, the perceived connection between one’s present and future self, is related—correlationally and causally—to meaning in life via authenticity, the subjective alignment with one’s true self. We tested and supported this hypothesis in three studies using measurement-of-mediation and experimental-causal-chain designs. At the trait level, future self-continuity was positively associated with meaning in life through authenticity (Study 1; N = 255). Experimentally induced high (vs. low) future self-continuity increased meaning in life via authenticity (Study 2; N = 177). Finally, experimentally induced authenticity (vs. controls) augmented meaning in life (Study 3; N = 369). Future self-continuity has implications for psychological well-being.

Nostalgia is a social, self-relevant, and bittersweet (although mostly positive) emotion that arises when reflecting on fond past memories and serves key psychological functions. The majority of evidence concerning the prevalence, triggers, and functions of nostalgia has been amassed in samples from a handful of largely Western cultures. If nostalgia is a fundamental psychological resource, it should perform similar functions across cultures, although its operational dynamics may be shaped by culture. This study (N= 2,606) examined dispositional nostalgia, self-reported triggers of nostalgia, and functions of experimentally induced nostalgia in young adults across 28 countries and a special administrative region of China (ie, Hong Kong). Results indicated that nostalgia is frequently experienced across cultures, albeit better valued in more-developed countries (ie, higher national wealth and life-expectancy …

We examined the change and stability of nostalgia in emerging adulthood. We followed 327 students through their 4 university years with six assessments. Nostalgia demonstrated moderate rank stability (r = .25–.79). A Trait-State-Occasion model analysis indicated that the stable trait component, slowing-change trait component, and state component explained 37% to 43%, 10% to 27%, and 29% to 49% of variation in nostalgia on specific occasions, respectively. Longitudinal multilevel analysis revealed that the mean nostalgia level declined across university years. Greater intensity of negative life events at the start of university was associated with higher initial nostalgia and slower decline of it, while the emotion intensified when experiencing more negative life events. Nostalgia in emerging adulthood displays moderate stability, with negative life events contributing to the shape of its trajectory.

Nostalgia: the existential value of temporal longing - ePrints Soton The University of Southampton Courses University life Research Business Global About Visit Alumni Departments News Events Contact × Search the Site Search Filter your search: All Courses Projects Staff University of Southampton Institutional Repository Search Advanced Search Policies & Help Latest Download Statistics Browse by Year Browse by Divisions LeftRight Nostalgia: the existential value of temporal longing Sedikides, Constantine and Wildschut, Tim (2024) Nostalgia: the existential value of temporal longing. In, Vail, Kenneth, Van Tongeren, DR, Schlegel, RJ, Greenberg, J., King, LA and Ryan, RM (eds.) Handbook of the science of existential psychology. Guilford. (In Press) Record type: Book Section Text Sedikides & Wildschut, in press - Accepted Manuscript Restricted to Repository staff only Request a copy More information Accepted…

Rituals are pervasive and beneficial. Little is known, however, about causes or antecedents of ritual engagement. We hypothesized that nostalgia—a sentimental longing for one’s past—promotes ritual engagement, which in turn augments meaning in life. We tested this hypothesis in five methodologically diverse studies. In Study 1 (N = 311), nostalgia was positively associated with ritual engagement. In Study 2 (N = 188), nostalgia promoted ritual engagement, and in Study 3 (N = 296), it did so over engagement in a neutral task. In Study 4 (N = 252), nostalgia predicted later ritual engagement but not vice versa, convergent with Studies 2 and 3. Furthermore, nostalgia prospectively predicted meaning in life through specific ritualistic behaviors during a traditional festival. Finally, in Study 5 (N = 166), experimentally manipulated ritual engagement augmented meaning in life. As hypothesized, nostalgia advances ritual …

According to the regulatory model of nostalgia, the emotion is triggered by adverse psychological and physical experiences. Nostalgia, in turn, serves to counter those negative states. We extend this model to encompass spatial anxiety, that is, apprehension and disorientation during environmental navigation. In Experiment 1, we induced spatial anxiety by training participants to navigate a route in a virtual maze and then surreptitiously changing part of the previously learned route (spatial-anxiety condition) or leaving the route unchanged (neutral condition). Consistent with the regulatory model, spatial anxiety (compared to the neutral condition) triggered nostalgia. In Experiments 2–3, we displayed nostalgic (nostalgia condition) or matched control (control condition) pictures on the walls of a virtual maze. Participants navigated the maze passively (video clip, Experiment 2) or actively (computer-based task …

The dark side of humanity manifests itself not only at the individual level but also at the group level, as the study of collective narcissism indicates (eg, Golec de Zavala, 2018; Golec de Zavala et al., 2009). Still, collective narcissism is a newcomer in the literature (see Golec de Zavala & Lantos, 2020, for a review). We elaborate on the construct, adopting a distinction between agentic and communal collective narcissism, and discuss measurement issues.

State authenticity as identity-based fit to the environment - ePrints Soton The University of Southampton Courses University life Research Business Global About Visit Alumni Departments News Events Contact × Search the Site Search Filter your search: All Courses Projects Staff University of Southampton Institutional Repository Search Advanced Search Policies & Help Latest Download Statistics Browse by Year Browse by Divisions LeftRight State authenticity as identity-based fit to the environment Sedikides, Constantine (2024) State authenticity as identity-based fit to the environment. In, Vail, Kenneth (ed.) Handbook of the Science of Existential Psychology. Guilford Press. Record type: Book Section Text Sedikides & Schmader_The Safe Model Restricted to Repository staff only Request a copy More information Published date: 4 March 2024 Identifiers Local EPrints ID: 488894 URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/…

Academic AbstractThis article integrates and advances the scope of research on the role of mental time travel in bolstering the self. We propose that imagining the self in the future (prospection) or in the past (retrospection) highlights central and positive self-aspects. Thus, bringing to mind one’s future or past broadens the perceived bases of self-integrity and offers a route to self-affirmation. In reviewing corresponding research programs on self-prospection and nostalgia, we illustrate that mental time travel serves to affirm the self in terms of self-esteem, coherence, and control. Mental time travel could be implemented as a source of self-affirmation for facilitating coping and behavior change in several domains such as relationships, health, education, and organizational contexts.Public AbstractPeople can mentally travel to their future or to their past. When people imagine what they will be like in the future, or what …

Nostalgic reverie (i.e. sentimental longing) has received increased attention as a predictor of health and well‐being, but only a handful of reviews have summarized this literature. The available reviews (Dementia: The International Journal of Social Research and Practice, 19, 2020, 330; Intimations of nostalgia: Multidisciplinary explorations of an enduring emotion, Bristol University Press, 2022) left a critical gap in explicating the function of nostalgia among people engaged in unhealthy behaviour. In the current systematic review and narrative analysis, we sought to answer whether and under what conditions emotion serves to help or hinder people engaged in unhealthy behaviours in terms of taking action to change. We identified 14 studies and categorized them into two themes. In Theme I, nostalgising about a time in one's life when one was healthier motivated both readiness to change and action to change …

This research tested the hypothesis that mindful-gratitude practice attenuates the robust association between collective narcissism and prejudice. In Study 1 (a between-subjects study using a nationally representative sample of 569 Polish adults; 313 female), 10 min of mindful-gratitude practice—compared to mindful-attention practice and control—did not decrease prejudice (anti-Semitism), but weakened the positive link between collective narcissism and prejudice. In Study 2 (a preregistered, randomized, controlled-trial study using a convenience sample of 219 Polish adults; 168 female), a 6-week mobile app supported training in daily mindful-gratitude practice decreased prejudice (anti-Semitism, sexism, homophobia, anti-immigrant sentiment) and its link with collective narcissism compared to a wait-list control. The hypothesis-consistent results emphasize the social relevance of mindful-gratitude practice, a …

We define trait nostalgia as the proclivity to bring to mind, and reflect wistfully upon, fond and meaningful experiences from one's personal past. The affective structure of nostalgic experiences is blended, but predominantly positive. Their content is acutely social, and their trajectory is redemptive rather than contaminative. Further, nostalgic experiences are appraised as pleasant, entailing irretrievable loss, being unique and distant, and being approach-oriented, positive, and low arousal. Valid scales designed to assess trait nostalgia are highly correlated (showing convergent validity), and nostalgia emerges as a latent variable in relevant confirmatory factor analysis, while evincing moderate rank-order stability. Moreover, nostalgia is distinct from other past-oriented traits or trait-like modes of thinking about one's past (i.e., homesickness, life longing, rumination, counterfactual thinking, reminiscence, autobiographical …

Nostalgia, a sentimental longing for one’s past, is associated with, or confers, psychological wellbeing (PWB). We identified a mechanism for this link: collective effervescence, a potent sense of connection to those present in an assembly and a sensation of transcendence (i.e., feeling that an experience is special or sacred). In six studies, involving measurement-of-mediation and experimental-causal-chain designs, nostalgia was associated with, and led to, higher PWB via collective effervescence. In Study 1, nostalgia was related to PWB through collective effervescence at the dispositional level. In Study 2, induced collective effervescence increased PWB. In Studies 3a–3c, induced nostalgia led to greater PWB due to collective effervescence. In Study 4, induced nostalgia increased PWB due to collective effervescence even when controlling for authenticity, an alternate mediator.

The SAFE model asserts that state authenticity stems from three types of fit to the environment. Across two studies of university students, we validated instruments measuring self-concept, goal, and social fit as unique predictors of state authenticity. In Study 1 (N = 969), relationships between fit and state authenticity were robust to controlling for conceptually similar and distinct variables. Using experience sampling methodology, Study 2 (N = 269) provided evidence that fit and authenticity co-vary at the state (i.e., within-person) level, controlling for between-person effects. Momentary variation in each fit type predicted greater state authenticity, willingness to return to the situation, and state attachment to one’s university. Each fit type was also predicted by distinct contextual features (e.g., location, activity, company). Supporting a theorized link to cognitive fluency, situations eliciting self-concept fit elicited higher working …

A prior meta‐analysis yielded a positive relation between self‐enhancement and psychological health. We present the first meta‐analysis of the association between self‐enhancement and physical health (k = 87; N = 22,415). We relied predominantly on social desirability as an operationalization of self‐enhancement and secondarily on comparative judgement and narcissism. Further, we operationalized physical health in terms of self‐rated health, symptoms and biomarkers. Overall, self‐enhancement yielded a near‐zero association with physical health, r = .01. However, this association was more pronounced for comparative judgement (r = .18, k = 6) than social desirability (r = .03, k = 41) or narcissism (r = −.0001, k = 8), and for self‐rated health (r = .09, k = 9) than symptoms (r = .01, k = 29) or biomarkers (r = −.13, k = 17). The association between self‐enhancement and physical health fluctuates across …

Introduction: adolescent personality is consistently linked to behavioral strengths and difficulties. However, most of this work is limited in that it does not consider personality beyond the Big Five or economic or parental adversity contexts. The Tri-Directional Framework of Parent and Offspring Traits and Outcomes highlights the collective influence of personality, parenting, and context on offspring behavioral outcomes. Methods: parent and adolescent cross-sectional data were collected from 2019-2021 as part of the Parents and Children Together project in the United Kingdom. Adolescents (N = 310, 48.7% female) self-reported on Dark Triad traits, parenting, and behavior. Parents (N = 288, 46.9% mothers) self-reported on socioeconomic status and adverse childhood experiences. In two path analysis models, we examined: (1) adolescent Dark Triad, context, and their interactions as predictors of perceived maternal and paternal warmth, hostility, and control; and (2) adolescent Dark Triad, perceived parenting, context, and personality-parenting interactions as predictors of adolescent behavioral strengths and difficulties. Results: adolescent narcissistic traits were the strongest predictors of perceived maternal parenting, whereas adolescent psychopathy and Machiavellianism were the strongest predictors of perceived paternal parenting. Adolescent personality interacted with contextual factors in predicting parenting, but not with perceived parenting in predicting behavior. Conclusion: adolescent Dark Triad traits, especially narcissism, and contextual factors are important for the parent-offspring relationship and developmental outcomes. We …

We review four established scales for measuring individual differences in trait-level nostalgia: the Nostalgia Inventory, the Southampton Nostalgia Scale, the Nostalgia Prototype Scale, and the Personal Inventory of Nostalgic Experiences. To examine their convergent validity, we re-analyzed data from a published study in which all four scales were administered simultaneously. Multi-group confirmatory factor analyses demonstrated that a one-factor model accurately described the interrelations among the four scales, and supported full metric and partial scalar invariance across U.S. and Chinese samples. When measuring trait nostalgia, we recommend that researchers also consider potential confounders. Specifically, we discuss the importance of controlling for other ways in which individuals habitually reflect on their past, including brooding rumination and upward self-referent counterfactual thinking.

The self-concordance model (SCM) examines the entire sequence from goal inception to attainment, and presents a framework for how goal-regulatory strategies (eg, goal effort) and outcomes (eg, psychological well-being) vary based on the quality of motivation for goal striving. The first aim of this meta-analysis was to compile a rich literature on this topic spanning over 20 years and present a cohesive picture of the associations among the SCM constructs (Model 1). The second goal was to test alternative formulations of the model in which we (a) decomposed the self-concordance index into autonomous and controlled goal motives;(b) included situational antecedents (eg, autonomy support and control) and psychological need frustration (Model 2); and (c) modeled psychological need satisfaction as a predictor of goal motives (Model 3). Guided by the PRISMA criteria, we conducted a systematic review and multilevel meta-analytic structural equation modeling. We extracted a total of 1,032 effect sizes (N= 10,501 for Model 1; N= 38,608 for Models 2 and 3). For Model 1, the results showed associations of at least medium effect size (r’s>. 20) between the model constructs. In Models 2 and 3, theoretically expected relations of at least medium effect size were found among all model constructs. The core assertions of the SCM that pursuing self-concordant goals is associated with increased goal effort and attainment, psychological need satisfaction, and well-being were supported. Furthermore, the alternative models added value by showing the original SCM model can be broadened to integrate additional factors.

Grandiose narcissists claim that they have better-than-average emotion recognition abilities, but many objective tests do not support this claim. We sought to clarify the relation between grandiose (both agentic and communal) narcissism and emotion recognition by taking a closer look at the components of emotion recognition. In two studies (N1 = 147, N2 = 520), using culturally distinct samples and different stimulus materials, we investigated the relation between grandiose narcissism and signal decoding (accurate view of the intended emotion displayed in an expression) as well as noise perception (inaccurate deciphering of secondary emotions that are not part of the emotional message). Narcissism was inconsistently related to signal decoding, but consistently and positively related to noise perception. High grandiose (agentic and communal) narcissists are not necessarily better at signal decoding, but are …

Purpose Early identification of neurocognitive disorder (cognitive impairment) in older adults is critical and necessary. Early identification allows for additional time for prevention efforts (eg, manage blood glucose levels in those with diabetes, increase exercise/physical activity, etc.), intervention (eg, identify and intervene on treatable causes that may be impacting cognition, or slow the progression of untreatable causes), and long-term planning. The latter of which can happen at a time during which the older adult is cognitively capable of providing input into financial arrangements and long-term care preferences. The majority of older adults present to their primary care providers with concerns about their own change in cognitive functions such as memory loss or decline in ability to perform daily tasks, or present with concerns about cognitive changes in a significant other (Shwartz et al. 2017). Differentiation between …