Topic: The future of nostalgia

Speaker: Constantine Sedikides
              Professor of Social and Personality Psychology 
              University of Southampton

Host: Pro. ZHOU Xinyue

Time: 10:00-12:00 September 25th, 2017 (Monday)

Venue: Room 1102
 
Abstract:
Nostalgia is a bittersweet, self-relevant, and social emotion. The content of nostalgic accounts features the self as protagonist, albeit embedded with close others into momentous occasions. Also, nostalgic content entails more expressions of positive than negative affect, and depicts redemption than contamination life scenes. Nostalgia has remarkable implications for one’s future. It promotes an approach (vs. avoidance) orientation. Itraises optimism, and it does so by boosting social connectedness (a sense of support, belongingness, and acceptance) and subsequently lifting self-esteem.  It increases creativity, and it does by bolstering openness to experience. It kindles prosociality, such as intentions to donate and actual monetary donating. And it promotes intergroup contact. Far from reflecting escapism from the present, nostalgia potentiates a positive, attainable future.

About the Speaker:

Constantine Sedikides’ research is on self and identity and their interplay with emotion and motivation, close relationships, and group processes. Before joining the University of Southampton, where he presently teaches, Constantine taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (USA) and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (USA). He holds a BA from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, and a PhD from the Ohio State University, USA.
Constantine has published 15 volumes and approximately 350 articles or chapters. His research has been supported by grants from many national and international foundations. He has given over three dozen keynote addresses and has received numerous awards, including the: Distinguished Lifetime Career Award, International Society for Self and Identity; Kurt Lewin Medal for Outstanding Scientific Contribution from the European Association of Social Psychology; and Presidents´ Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychological Knowledge from The British Psychological Society. He has been elected an Academician by the Academy of Social Sciences for Significant Contribution to Social Sciences. In 2016, he was elected a Leading International Scientist by the CAS President’s International Fellowship Initiative (PIFI).