Collective nostalgia is an emotion experienced when one sentimentally recalls events or things related to a particular social identity. We investigated the relationship between collective nostalgia about the United Kingdom (UK) and UK citizens' desire to leave the European Union (EU). We collected data of UK citizens twice prior to the UK's official withdrawal from the European Union (N = 347 and N = 240) and once afterwards (N = 236). Cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis, utilizing cross-lagged panel models, supported the hypothesis that collective UK nostalgia increased the desire to leave the European Union. We additionally hypothesized that the relationship between these variables would be mediated positively by ties to UK citizens and negatively by ties to EU citizens. Exploratory and longitudinal analysis, however, indicated that strength of ties to UK and EU citizens predicts levels of collective UK nostalgia which, in turn, predicts desire to leave the European Union. Specifically, ties to UK citizens were associated with increased collective nostalgia and a desire to leave the EU and ties to EU citizens were associated with reduced collective nostalgia and a desire to re-join the European Union. We discuss the implications of the findings as well as making suggestions for future studies.

中文翻译：

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集体的英国怀旧情绪预示着离开欧盟的愿望

集体怀旧是一种当人们感伤地回忆与特定社会身份相关的事件或事物时所经历的情感。我们调查了对英国 (UK) 的集体怀旧情绪与英国公民离开欧盟 (EU) 的愿望之间的关系。我们在英国正式退出欧盟之前收集了两次英国公民的数据（N  = 347 和N  = 240），以及之后收集了一次（N  = 236）。利用交叉滞后面板模型进行的横截面和纵向分析支持了这样的假设：英国集体怀旧情绪增加了离开欧盟的愿望。我们还假设这些变量之间的关系将受到与英国公民的关系的正向调节，以及与欧盟公民的关系的负向调节。然而，探索性和纵向分析表明，与英国和欧盟公民的联系强度预示着英国集体怀旧的程度，而这反过来又预示着离开欧盟的愿望。具体来说，与英国公民的联系与集体怀旧情绪的增加和离开欧盟的愿望有关，而与欧盟公民的联系与集体怀旧情绪的减少和重新加入欧盟的愿望有关。我们讨论研究结果的含义，并为未来的研究提出建议。