Nostalgia and Nostalgia-Proneness Nostalgia translates from Greek as the burning wish to return (Sedikides, Wildschut & Baden, 2004) and was originally defined as a medical condition by Hofer (1688/1934) to describe extreme homesickness. While originally viewed as a negative phenomena, modern conceptualization describes nostalgia an evocation of mixed emotional states where one feels mostly positive emotions towards one’s past with a hint of negative affect towards missing the one’s past (Abeyta, Routledge, & Juhl, 2015; Wildscut et. al., 2006). Holak and Havlena (1998) associated nostalgia with tenderness, exhilaration, loss, serenity and pleasure. Research has suggested that nostalgia can be triggered by negative emotions in order to counteract …show more content…
For this study, the researcher attempts to test how differences in nostalgia-proneness relate to one’s enjoyment and selective exposure of known and unknown characters. Therefore the following hypotheses were proposed for this study. H4: Participants with higher nostalgia-proneness will have higher nostalgia than participants with lower nostalgia-proneness. This difference between the groups will be stronger with unoriginal characters compared to original characters. H5: Participants with higher nostalgia-proneness will have higher enjoyment than participants with lower nostalgia-proneness. This difference between the groups will be stronger with unoriginal characters compared to original …show more content…
The survey consisted of a list of 18 children’s cartoons in random order that aired between 2001 and 2005 that were recognized by IMDd and TV.com for either for popularity or quality (WallaceFRCorrice, 2011; TV.com, 2016). Shows targeted towards preschool children or mature audiences, that came from a transmedia franchise, or that had a theatrical movie release were excluded. In the pilot survey, undergraduate participants (N = 337) rated the overall knowledge of the shows, how they perceived the show’s popularity, and their general enjoyment of the show. 6 participants were removed for incompletion leaving 331 participants (72.5% female, Mage = 20.5, SDage = 2.7, 67.7% Caucasian, 19.9% Hispanic, 12.4% other ethnicities) for analysis. The first two dimensions were measured with three original items each on a 7-point Likert scale from 1, Strongly Disagree, to 7, Strongly Agree (αmemory = .89, αpopularity = .90). Enjoyment was measured with four items from Raney’s (2002) enjoyment scale, using a 7-point scale (α = .97). A promotional image of each show was included with each set of items in order to stimulate memory. All three scales were strongly correlated with each other: memory and popularity, r = .79, p < .001; popularity and enjoyment, r = .69 p < .001; and enjoyment and memory, r = .79, p < .001. All three scales were