Nostalgia and Consumption Preferences: Some Emerging Patterns of Consumer Tastes

Abstract

As studied in recent consumer research, the role of nostalgia involves both (1) a link between age and the development of consumer tastes (over time) and (2) the relationship of nostalgia proneness (a psychographic variable) to patterns of consumer preferences. However, questions remain concerning whether the influence of nostalgia proneness and age can be regarded as two independent aspects of nostalgic consumption. This research reports a pair of studies that investigate this issue with respect to motion picture preferences among subjects. Study 1 uses an age-homogeneous sample to examine 20 items that assess nostalgia proneness, to derive a nostalgia scale, to form a spatial representation of movie preferences, and to test the fit of a vector reflecting differential nostalgia-related tastes in this preference space. Study 2 generalizes these results to a sample heterogeneous with respect to age and shows that age and nostalgia proneness appear to work independently as separate aspects of nostalgic preference patterns.