Academic News: Nostalgia Can Increase Charitable Giving

Reminiscing about times past can stir up pleasant feelings of nostalgia. But nostalgia increases charitable intentions as well as actual charitable donations, according to a 2012 study published in the Journal of Consumer Research. “The experiments helped to build a compelling case that nostalgia increases charitable intentions,” says study co-author Tim Wildschut, a social psychologist at the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom. The effect on charitable intentions flows from an increase in empathy produced by nostalgia.