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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Soc. Psychol.
Sec. Attitudes, Social Justice and Political Psychology
Volume 2 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/frsps.2024.1276367
This article is part of the Research Topic The Political Psychology of Social Change View all 11 articles

Development and Validation of a National Prostalgia Scale to Measure Acceptance and Desire for Cultural Change

Provisionally accepted
Michael Zarate Michael Zarate 1*Jessica Bray Jessica Bray 2Sol Corral Sol Corral 1Dan Jones Dan Jones 3
  • 1 The University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, United States
  • 2 University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, United States
  • 3 University of Nevada, Reno, Reno, Nevada, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Demographic changes occurring throughout the world, as well as different forms of climate and social movements, are examples of the constant cultural change people experience. Many of these changes reflect broad political and existential threats. We developed and tested the concept of national prostalgia, which we define as the longing of the nation's future. According to Cultural Inertia theory, national prostalgia is a psychological propeller that facilitates acceptance of cultural change. We conducted two correlational studies to develop and test the construct, and the predictive, divergent, and convergent validity of national prostalgia by comparing it to two prospection scales that measure future-thinking, and a third study to experimentally test if national prostalgia can be manipulated. We hypothesized that national prostalgia would predict higher acceptance to cultural change. Change was operationalized as eco-friendly intentions, engagement of new norms created during the COVID-19 pandemic and lowering prejudiced attitudes-beyond the effect of national nostalgia, prospection, optimism, and openness to new experiences. Study 1 demonstrated that national prostalgia was a better predictor than prospection for higher eco-friendly intentions and acceptance of new normal norms, even when controlling for national nostalgia (i.e., a psychological anchor). In study 2, national prostalgia predicted higher eco-friendly intentions and acceptance of new normal norms, even when controlling for prospection, optimism, and openness to new experiences. National prostalgia did not predict outgroup derogation or white nationalism-variables that indicate prejudice. Study 3 replicated the basic effects, but manipulations designed to influence national prostalgia did not have their predicted effects. Thus, national prostalgia is a psychological propeller that goes above and beyond the effect of prospection and we now have a reliable and valid scale to measure national prostalgia.

    Keywords: Cultural inertia, future-thinking, national prostalgia, scale validation, Social Change

    Received: 11 Aug 2023; Accepted: 14 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Zarate, Bray, Corral and Jones. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Michael Zarate, The University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.