Journal of Consumer Research, Inc.

Nostalgia and Consumption Preferences: Some Emerging Patterns of Consumer Tastes

Author(s): Morris B. Holbrook
Source: Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 20, No. 2 (Sep., 1993), pp. 245-256
Published by: Oxford University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2489272
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Nostalgia and Consumption Preferences:
Some Emerging Patterns of Consumer
Tastes

MORRIS B. HOLBROOK*

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
relationshipof nostalgia proneness (a psychographic variable)to patterns of consumer
preferences. However, questions remain concerning whether the influence of nos-
talgia 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-ho-
mogeneous 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.

As a basic aspect of the human condition, the phe-
nomenon of nostalgia has received attention from
such disciplines as history (Hobsbawm 1983; Lowenthal
1985), psychology (Fodor 1950; Nawas and Platt 1965),
sociology (Davis 1979), anthropology (McCracken
1988), environmental psychology (Taylor and Konrad
1980), and other more eclectic approaches in social sci-
ence (Campbell 1987; Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-
Halton 1981). Further, by virtue of the potential con-
nection of nostalgic feelings to consumption experiences
of many kinds, several consumer researchers have ex-
amined various questions related to nostalgia and to
consumption associated with the "dear departed past."
For example, Holbrook (1989) traces nostalgic themes
in the songs of David Frishberg. Belk (1990, 1991) deals
with the meanings of possessions in establishing one's
"sense of past." Belk et al. (1988; 1991) apply this gen-
eral perspective to the specific case of collecting and
explore the manner in which collections of memora-
bilia, souvenirs, and other relics preserve memories that
enhance people's lives. Havlena and Holak (1991) re-
view the use of nostalgic appeals in advertising and other
commercial settings, while Holbrook and Schindler
(1991) consider these and other phenomena en route
*Morris B. Holbrook is the William T. Dillard Professor of Mar-
keting, Graduate School of Business, Columbia University, 504 Uris
Hall, New York, NY 10027. The author thanks Robert M. Schindler
for his helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. He also
gratefully acknowledges the support of the Columbia Business School's
Faculty Research Fund.
245
to building some theoretical connections between age
and the development of nostalgia-related consumer
tastes. Most recently, Holak and Havlena (1992) ex-
amine the recurring person-, object-, and event-related
themes in personal accounts of nostalgic consumption
experiences; Stern (1992) applies the viewpoint of lit-
erary criticism to an analysis of nostalgia in advertising
as it reflects antecedents found in historical romances
and sentimental novels; and Hirsch (1992) summarizes
research connecting nostalgic emotions to odors via the
sense of smell.
Defining Nostalgia
In general, nostalgia refers to a longing for the past,
a yearning for yesterday, or a fondness for possessions
and activities associated with days of yore. For example,
Davis (1979) views "simple nostalgia" as "a positively
toned evocation of a lived past" involving a negative
feeling toward the present or future as manifested by a
"belief that THINGS WERE BETTER . . . THEN
THAN NOW" (p. 18). Building on this view of nos-
talgia, Holbrook and Schindler (1991) define it as "a
preference (general liking, positive attitude, or favorable
affect) toward objects (people, places, or things) that
were more common (popular, fashionable, or widely
circulated) when one was younger (in early adulthood,
in adolescence, in childhood, or even before birth)"
(p. 330).
Four aspects of the latter definition deserve emphasis.
First, preference designates the consumer's degree of
? 1993by JOURNALOF CONSUMERRESEARCH,Inc.* Vol. 20 o September1993
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246
liking toward various objects used in consumption.
Second, these objects refer to any kind of product
(broadly defined to cover both goods and services, in-
cluding such aspects of popular culture as recordings,
movies, or other entertainment). Third, with respect to
the concept more common . . . when one was younger,
differences of opinion exist on whether nostalgia per-
tains only to one's own store of remembered events
from a "personally experienced past" (Davis 1979, p.
8) or reaches back historically so that it "engulfs the
whole past" (Lowenthal 1985, p. 6). As indicated by its
inclusion of "before birth," this definition accepts a
broad interpretation of "when one was younger" and,
in that sense, favors the side of this debate espoused by
Lowenthal. Thus, while nostalgia might attach itself to
experiences recalled from one's own youth (Davis
1979), it might also focus on the womb (Fodor 1950),
on objects "recalled" via collective memory from a his-
torical era (Lowenthal 1985), or on combining ancient
materials into invented traditions that serve the needs
of the present (Hobsbawm 1983). Fourth, this definition
focuses on the temporal orientation of one's product-
related attitudes and does not necessarily bear on the
degree of sentimentality or other bittersweet, wistful
feelings that may attend those positive affective re-
sponses toward objects from days of yore.
Nostalgia and Age
It appears that the targets of nostalgia and general
levels of nostalgic consumption experienced by different
consumers depend on developmental changes that oc-
cur over time and that are therefore associated with
age. On this theme, a general review by Davis (1979)
suggests that "in Western society it is adolescence, and
for the privileged classes early adulthood as well, that
affords nostalgia its most sumptuous banquets" (p. 57);
"the tides of nostalgia which . . . wash over middle-
aged persons typically carry them back to the songs,
films, styles, and fads of their late teens" (p. 60).
Recent empirical evidence has supported aspects of
this proposed link between age and nostalgic tastes. For
example, Holbrook and Schindler (1989) found a non-
monotonic relationship in which preferences for mu-
sical recordings peaked for those that had been popular
when the respondent was in the vicinity of about 23.5
years old. This result corresponds to the conventional
wisdom that "adolescence . . . [is] the formative years
for music preferences" so that "the most important fac-
tor determining people's musical tastes is their age"
(Stipp 1990, p. 48).
Analogous findings appeared in a study by Schuman
and Scott (1989). These authors examined the relation-
ship between age and the tendency toward attributing
importance to various historical events. They found
maximal memorability for episodes that had occurred
during an age cohort's "teens or early 20s" and con-
cluded that "memories . . . are structured by age"
(p. 377).
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JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH
Nostalgia Proneness
In addition to these effects due to age, nostalgic phe-
nomena may also characterize consumers of the same
age to different degrees. In preliminary work on this
topic, I have argued that-even for people of compa-
rable ages-some individuals might show higher pro-
pensities toward nostalgia proneness than others. From
this perspective, we may regard nostalgia proneness as
a potential facet of individual character-a psycho-
graphic variable, aspect of life-style, or general customer
characteristic-that may vary among consumers, in-
dependent of time- or age-related factors. To explore
the potential effects of nostalgia proneness as a psycho-
graphic variable that differs among members of the same
age cohort at a moment in time, I proposed a 20-item
index of nostalgia proneness, assessed the role of this
nostalgia index in explaining preferences toward a large
set of 125 products, and found encouraging reliability
and concurrent validity when applied to a sample ho-
mogeneous with respect to age (Holbrook 1993).
Purpose of the Study
In sum, previous research has suggested the impor-
tance of two consumption-related phenomena asso-
ciated with nostalgia. The first concerns the role of age
in the development of consumer tastes. The second in-
volves nostalgia proneness as a psychographic variable
that differs even among consumers from the same age
cohort. Further work is needed, however, to refine our
measure of nostalgia proneness, to assess its reliability,
and to validate its ability along with age to explain pat-
terns of preferences toward products that provide im-
portant nostalgia-related consumption experiences.
Toward that end, this article reports two studies.
Study 1 involves a complete reanalysis of the data col-
lected earlier on a sample of respondents homogeneous
with respect to age (Holbrook 1993). Study 2 generalizes
the results of study 1 to a sample of respondents that
vary over a wide range of ages so as to validate the first
set of findings on an age-heterogenous sample of con-
sumers.
METHOD
General Procedure
Studies 1 and 2 used identical questionnaires to col-
lect data on respondents' preferences toward 62 movies,
their agreement with 20 statements reflecting nostalgia
proneness, and their demographic characteristics on
such variables as gender and age. As already mentioned,
the studies differed in that the first set of respondents
came from the same age cohort whereas the second rep-
resented a wide range of ages. Although some prelim-
inary results for the first study appear elsewhere (Hol-
brook 1993), the present research entails a completely
new analysis of the data from study 1.
NOSTALGIAAND CONSUMER TASTES
Stimulus Objects
The questionnaire used in both studies employed a
randomly ordered set of 62 movies that won Academy
Awards for Best Picture from 1927 to 1988 (Levy 1987).
This list of movies appears in Table 1 (with dates shown
in parentheses and with abbreviations as used in the
figures capitalized). On the questionnaire, the 62 dated
films were accompanied by a nine-point numerical scale
intended to capture the respondent's degree of liking
for each Oscar-winning movie from intense disliking
(1) to intense liking (9). Respondents unfamiliar with
a film were encouraged to mark the middle part of the
liking scale. This treatment of unfamiliarity as a neutral
response helps to ensure that correlations of preferences
among films are driven by associations among tastes
for familiar objects and not by distortions due to un-
familiarity. For purposes of reducing scale-response
biases, because interest focused on preferences among
the movies compared with one another, each respon-
dent's movie ratings were normalized to sum to zero
(by subtracting that respondent's overall mean rating
across movies from each movie-preference score).
Nostalgia Proneness
On the basis of the definition proposed earlier and
the conceptual considerations discussed by, among
others, Davis (1979), Fodor (1950), Lowenthal (1985),
and Nawas and Platt (1965), 20 statements were de-
signed to represent the phenomenon of nostalgia
proneness. These statements-ordered randomly with
10 worded as high and 10 as low in nostalgia prone-
ness-appear in the Appendix. On the questionnaire,
the 20 items were accompanied by nine-point numerical
scales defined for the respondent as indicating degree
of agreement ranging from strong disagreement (1) to
strong agreement (9). These raw numerical scores were
normalized for each respondent separately by subtract-
ing their mean (so as to reduce the effects of scale-
response biases), were reversed in direction where ap-
propriate (for scale numbers 2, 3, 5, 8, 9, 12, 14, 15,
18, and 20), and were standardized across respondents
(to a mean of 0.0 and an SD of 1.0).
In study 1, a series of exploratory maximum-likeli-
hood factor analyses produced a set of items that showed
an acceptable chi-square fit to a single-factor model.
Scores for this factor were then regarded as a measure
of nostalgia proneness-hereafter referred to as the
nostalgia scale-for use in subsequent parts of the anal-
ysis. However, because the derivation of this scale in-
troduced search bias into -the first study, a confirmatory
maximum-likelihood factor analysis was then per-
formed on these same items in study 2 to assess the
generalizability of the results from study 1.
Demographics
At the conclusion of the questionnaire, respondents
indicated their gender (male/female), age (in years), and
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247
country of origin (U.S.A./other English-speaking/other
non-English-speaking). With respect to age, Davis
(1979) argues for a positive relationship with nostalgia
proneness (p. 64). Common sense might also suggest
the possibility of a relationship between nostalgia
proneness and gender. Therefore, in this research, both
gender and age were considered as potential correlates
of the nostalgia scale and were tested accordingly.
Meanwhile, country of origin was used primarily as a
screening variable in a manner intended to ensure the
homogeneity of the samples in this respect.
Samples
Study 1. The age-homogeneous sample used in
study 1 included 226 respondents drawn from two in-
troductory classes in marketing strategy at a large grad-
uate school of business. To encourage familiarity with
the objects used to assess movie-related tastes, only those
170 respondents who named the United States as their
country of origin were retained in the sample. After the
elimination of three age-atypical outliers (with ages of
38, 39, and 52 years, respectively), the 167 remaining
respondents (72 women, 95 men) fell into the range of
ages between 21 and 34 years old (X = 26.4, SD = 2.44,
median = 26). Analyses performed on only those 133
respondents from 24 to 28 years of age produced vir-
tually identical results.
Study 2. The age-heterogeneous sample used in
study 2 was collected from members of the previously
mentioned marketing classes during a subsequent se-
mester. Each student was asked to gather data from two
respondents, subject to the constraints (1) that the re-
spondents must not be present or former students of
the school (to avoid biases due to participation in a
small circle of acquaintances), (2) that they must be
native, English-speaking Americans (to ensure general
familiarity with the movies used in the study), (3) that
they must be more than 18 years old and should differ
in age by at least 20-30 years (to encourage a wide spec-
trum of ages covered by this study), and (4) that they
must not be apprised of any speculations concerning
the purpose of the study (although the students them-
selves were not informed about its rationale until after
the data had been collected). This procedure produced
a set of 189 questionnaires. Of these, 33 were eliminated
because of missing data or a failure to indicate "U.S.A."
as the country of origin. This left a sample of 156 re-
spondents (94 women, 62 men), who ranged in age from
21 to 85 years old (X = 41.7, SD = 15.9, 37 < median
< 38).
Analyses
Analyses of the relationships in question were con-
ducted primarily by means of principal components (to
obtain spatial representations of preference patterns for
movies), maximum-likelihood factor analysis (to assess
 TABLE 1

LOADINGS FOR 62 MOVIES ON THE FIRST TWO PRINCIPAL COMPONENTS IN THE PREFERENCE SPACE: STUDIES 1 AND 2

Study 1 Study 2

Movie title, date Dimension 1 Dimension 2 Dimension 1 Dimension 2

Oliver!, 1968 (OLIVER) -.30 -.32 -.05 -.28

Around the World in 80 Days, 1956 (AROUND) -.08 -.11 .02 -.05
The Sting, 1973 (STING) -.42 .27 -.43 .25
You Can't Take It with You, 1938 (CAN'T) .42 .01 .26 .12
Ben Hur, 1959 (BEN) .01 .16 -.14 .27
Lawrence of Arabia, 1962 (LAWRENCE) .02 -.08 .00 .28
Going My Way, 1944 (GOING) .39 -.04 .33 .20
The Last Emperor, 1987 (EMPEROR) -.26 -.22 -.10 -.13
Midnight Cowboy, 1969 (COWBOY) .09 .17 -.15 -.04
Amadeus, 1984 (AMADEUS) -.29 -.15 -.16 -.36
Hamlet, 1948 (HAMLET) .08 -.02 .22 -.06
West Side Story, 1961 (WEST) -.25 -.19 -.15 -.49
The Broadway Melody, 1929 (MELODY) .23 -.07 .14 .10
Mutiny on the Bounty, 1935 (MUTINY) .12 .24 .11 .32
Ordinary People, 1980 (ORDINARY) -.30 -.09 -.23 -.39
Gone with the Wind, 1939 (GONE) -.27 -.35 .06 -.22
My Fair Lady, 1964 (FAIR) -.23 -.50 .35 -.54
Seventh Heaven, 1928 (SEVENTH) .53 -.00 .26 .14
Grand Hotel, 1932 (HOTEL) .46 -.03 .44 .01
It Happened One Night, 1934 (HAPPENED) .40 -.20 .39 .05
The Godfather, Part iI, 1974 (GODFATHER2) -.24 .52 -.53 .30
Gentleman's Agreement, 1947 (AGREEMENT) .46 .10 .31 .14
Terms of Endearment, 1983 (ENDEARMENT) -.53 -.10 -.32 -.47
Out of Africa, 1985 (OUT) -.46 -.48 -.08 -.52
Marty, 1955 (MARTY) .41 .31 .16 .08
The Bridge on the River Kwai, 1957 (BRIDGE) .00 .42 .29 .53
How Green Was My Valley, 1941 (GREEN) .50 -.31 .58 .27
A Man for All Seasons, 1966 (MAN) .37 -.06 .43 .06
The French Connection, 1971 (FRENCH) -.22 .50 -.46 .43
The Deer Hunter, 1978 (DEER) -.21 .69 -.57 .43
The Greatest Show on Earth, 1952 (SHOW) .33 .28 -.10 .37
Gandhi, 1982 (GANDHI) -.30 -.24 -.11 -.17
The Life of Emile Zola, 1937 (ZOLA) .45 .00 .34 .14
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, 1975 (FLEW) -.22 .44 -.34 -.12
Kramer vs. Kramer, 1979 (KRAMER) -.47 -.06 -.35 -.48
Gigi, 1958 (GIGI) -.00 -.44 .42 -.34
Tom Jones, 1963 (JONES) .22 .11 .19 -.12
From Here to Eternity, 1953 (ETERNITY) -.06 -.16 18 -.05
All About Eve, 1950 (EVE) .24 -.28 .23 -.24
The Godfather, 1972 (GODFATHER1) -.19 .64 -.58 .22
The Lost Weekend, 1945 (WEEKEND) .59 -.00 .35 .20
Mrs. Miniver, 1942 (MINIVER) .54 -.15 .50 .15
Cimarron, 1931 (CIMARRON) .61 .04 .12 .39
Cavalcade, 1933 (CAVALCADE) .68 .04 .00 .35
In the Heat of the Night, 1967 (HEAT) .23 .07 -.17 .17
Platoon, 1986 (PLATOON) -.34 .41 -.54 .23
Casablanca, 1943 (CASABLANCA) -.09 -.16 -.11 .02
The Best Years of Our Lives, 1946 (YEARS) .36 -.03 .35 -.10
Rain Man, 1988 (RAIN) -.32 -.15 -.46 -.39
Wings, 1927 (WINGS) .47 -.00 .17 .16
An American in Paris, 1951 (AMERICAN) -.15 -.46 .39 -.39
Chariots of Fire, 1981 (CHARIOTS) -.24 -.26 .18 -.18
The Great Ziegfeld, 1936 (ZIEGFELD) .31 .05 .31 .08
On the Waterfront, 1954 (WATERFRONT) .11 .07 .07 .01
All Quiet on the Western Front, 1930 (FRONT) .23 .06 .35 .42
The Sound of Music, 1965 (SOUND) -.25 -.47 -.06 -.40
Patton, 1970 (PATTON) .02 .51 -.06 .50
Rocky, 1976 (ROCKY) -.41 .40 -.61 .17
The Apartment, 1960 (APARTMENT) .49 .00 .07 .04
All the King's Men, 1949 (MEN) .32 -.12 .10 .15
Rebecca, 1940 (REBECCA) .36 -.31 .43 -.34
Annie Hall, 1977 (ANNIE) -.09 -.09 -.26 -.32

NOTE.-Abbreviations are indicated with capital letters in parentheses.

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NOSTALGIA AND CONSUMER TASTES 249

TABLE 2
FACTOR ANALYSES
LOADINGSAND z-VALUES FOR EXPLORATORYAND CONFIRMATORYMAXIMUM-LIKELIHOOD
OF EIGHTNOSTALGIAITEMS IN STUDIES 1 AND 2

Study 1 (exploratory) Study 2 (confirmatory)

Factor Factor
Nostalgia item loading z-Value loading z-Value

(1) They don't make 'em like they used to .49 6.0 .54 6.2
(4) Things used to be better in the good old days .47 5.8 .50 5.8
(7) Products are getting shoddier and shoddier .52 6.5 .54 6.3
(9) Technological change will insure a brighter future [reversed] .76 10.3 .60 7.0
(14) History involves a steady improvement in human welfare
[reversed] .48 5.9 .43 4.8
(17) We are experiencing a decline in the quality of life .50 6.2 .61 7.2
(18) Steady growth in GNP has brought increased human happiness
[reversed] .58 7.4 .34 3.8
(20) Modern business constantly builds a better tomorrow
[reversed] .62 7.9 .45 5.1

the unidimensionality of the nostalgia scale), and or-
dinary least squares regressions (to insert attribute-,
gender-, age-, and nostalgia-related vectors into the
preference spaces). Specifically, in the latter connection,
relative scores for the correlate of interest (e.g., an at-
tribute or differential preferences associated with gen-
der, age, or nostalgia) were regressed on spatial coor-
dinates (across movies in the preference space) with the
direction of the resulting vector obtained by plotting
an arrow from the origin through the coordinates given
by the relevant regression coefficients and with the
length of the vector equal to its correlational fit (Carroll
1972; Holbrook and Holloway 1984). Those objects that
project farther toward the head (tail) of a vector tend
to be higher (lower) on the attribute of interest or stron-
ger (weaker) in terms of relative preferences associated
with the relevant general customer characteristic (gen-
der, age, nostalgia, etc.). Further tests were conducted
to see whether fits could be increased by including extra
quadratic terms to represent an "ideal point" model;
however, such refinements did not significantly improve
over the performance of the vector models and will not
be discussed further here.
RESULTS: STUDY 1
The Nostalgia Scale
To perform confirmatory maximum-likelihood factor
analysis on the nostalgia items, it was necessary to omit
one item so as to avoid perfect linear dependence among
the normalized scores. For this purpose, item 2 was
omitted because it had the smallest item-total correla-
tion and the weakest loading on the first principal com-
ponent. Confirmatory maximum-likelihood factor
analysis on the remaining 19 items produced rather
disappointing results for a single-factor model-x2
= 571.4 (df = 152, p < .00001) and a Tucker-Lewis
reliability coefficient of only 0.43 (Bentler 1989, p. 114;
Marsh, Balla, and McDonald 1988, p. 393; Tucker and
Lewis 1973, p. 5).
Accordingly, a stepwise search was conducted to
eliminate additional nostalgia items until the maxi-
mum-likelihood factor analysis no longer rejected the
null hypothesis of fit for the single-factor model. This
occurred for an analysis involving the eight nostalgia
items whose factor loadings and z-values appear in Ta-
ble 2. Here, the smallest z-value is 5.8, indicating that
all factor loadings are significant at well beyond p
< .000001. For this set of items, the single-factor model
was not rejected at p < .10: X2 = 27.8 (df = 20, p = .11)
with a Tucker-Lewis reliability coefficient of 0.96. The
construct reliability of the factor and coefficient alpha
for the corresponding summative index were both 0.78.
The nostalgia scale was therefore represented in the re-
maining analyses by factor scores for the eight items in
Table 2.
Gender, Age, and the Nostalgia Scale
On the basis of the nostalgia scale just described,
women appeared to be marginally more nostalgia-prone
than men (r = -0.15, p = .05). However, no association
appeared between the nostalgia scale and age (r = -0.04,
NS). Further, shared variance with nostalgia proneness
was extremely low for both gender (r2 = 0.02) and age
(r2 = 0.001). Hence, it seems safe to conclude that no
confounding occurred between nostalgia proneness and
these other demographic variables in this study.
Preference Space for Movies
Principal components analysis of preference scores
(normalized within each of the 167 respondents) for
the 62 movies described earlier was used to construct
a spatial representation of the intercorrelations among

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250
film preferences as a criterion for showing how patterns
of cinematic tastes are related to gender, age, and nos-
talgia proneness. This analysis produced an elbow in
eigenvalues after the second (or fourth) component, as
follows: 6.99, 4.81, 3.53, 3.38, 2.25, 2.11, 1.89, and so
on. Because only the first two dimensions appeared
clearly interpretable, further analyses were based on
these first two principal components.
Table 1 presents loadings on these two principal
components for the 62 movies (shown in the random-
ized order in which they appeared on the questionnaire).
However, a more vivid representation of the preference
space for movies appears in Figure 1, where the posi-
tions of the films are plotted according to their loadings
on the first principal component (the horizontal di-
mension) and the second principal component (the
vertical dimension), respectively. Here we observe a
tendency for the more recent films (Terms of Endear-
ment, Kramer vs. Kramer, Out of Africa) to lie toward
the left at the negative end of the horizontal axis and
for the earlier films (Cavalcade, Cimarron, The Lost
Weekend) to lie farther to the right at the positive end.
Meanwhile, as represented by the vertical axis, the sec-
ond principal component appears to distinguish be-
tween more tender or musical movies at the bottom in
the negative direction (My Fair Lady, The Sound of
Music, An American in Paris, Gigi) as opposed to more
violent or military films at the top in the positive di-
rection (The Deer Hunter, The Godfather, The God-
father, Part II, Patton).
Attribute Vectors
It would, of course, be possible to question this in-
terpretation of the preference space for movies on the
grounds that not all of the films included occupy the
spatial positions that logic might dictate. For example,
one might notice that a very old film like Wings (1927)
and a recent motion picture like Rain Man (1988) are
not positioned as far to the right and left of the hori-
zontal dimension as one might expect. Similarly, a mu-
sical like The Broadway Melody and a violent movie
like Ben Hur do not lie at the low or high extremes of
the vertical dimension. Here, however, the point is not
to argue that the spatial representation is perfect but
rather that it is consistent with the interpretation sug-
gested. Accordingly, the aforementioned interpretation
was tested by inserting attribute vectors to represent (1)
the date of a movie's release (as indicated by the year
in which it won its Oscar for Best Picture) and (2)
whether the content of a film is primarily violent, neu-
tral, or musical (coded -1/0/+1 according to whether
it features themes related to war, guns, or physical
aggression, as opposed to singing, dancing, or instru-
mental performances). In the latter connection-using
a coding scheme explained and justified elsewhere
(Holbrook 1993)-films scored as violent (-1) were Ben
Hur, Lawrence of Arabia, The Godfather, Part II,
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JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH
The Bridge on the River Kwai, The French Connection,
The Deer Hunter, The Godfather, Platoon, Wings, All
Quiet on the Western Front, Patton, and Rocky; those
scored as musical (+ 1) included Oliver!, Amadeus, West
Side Story, The Broadway Melody, My Fair Lady, Gigi,
An American in Paris, and The Sound of Music. Vectors
representing date and musical (vs. violent) content ap-
pear in Figure 1 (with their lengths equal to their cor-
relational fits).
First, across the 62 movies, the date vector moved
strongly to the left (r = -0.79, p < .0001) and only
slightly upward (r = 0.14, NS) with an overall multiple
regression fit of R = 0.81 (F(2,59) = 54.6, p < .0001).
This suggests a strong relation between the horizontal
axis and the date when a movie appeared and thereby
supports the interpretation of this horizontal dimension
suggested earlier.
Second, across the 62 movies, the musical vector hugs
the vertical axis (r = -0.70, p < .0001) with a very
slight drift to the left (r = -0.01, NS) and an overall
multiple regression fit of R = 0.70 (F(2,59) = 28.8, p
< .0001). The musicals tend to project toward the head
of this vector near the bottom of the space, while the
war movies and other violent films tend to project to-
ward the vector's tail at the top of the space. Once more,
the close association of this musical vector with the ver-
tical dimension supports the interpretation proposed
earlier.
Gender-, Age-, and Nostalgia-related
Preference Vectors
Vectors representing the differential preferences as-
sociated with gender, age, and nostalgia proneness ap-
pear in Figure 1 with lengths proportional to their cor-
relational fits.
The gender-related vector adheres closely to the ver-
tical axis, with a regression fit of R = 0.94 (F(2,59)
= 239.8, p < .000 1). It appears that men tend relatively
to prefer the more tough-minded and violent movies
located toward the top of the preference space. By con-
trast, women seem to feel a stronger relative preference
for the more tenderhearted and musical films at the
bottom of the spatial representation.
For this sample of respondents from the same age
cohort, the age-related vector showed only a weak and
statistically insignificant fit to the preference space for
movies: R = 0. 18 (F(2,59) = 1.0, NS). This finding does
not invite an interpretation other than to note that such
nonsignificance would be expected because of the age-
homogeneous nature of the sample.
The nostalgia vector points downward and slightly
to the left in the preference space for movies, with a
moderately strong overall fit of R = 0.51 (F(2,59)
= 10.2, p = .0002). Here, it appears that those higher
in nostalgia proneness tend relatively to prefer more
musical or tenderhearted films (OUT, FAIR, SOUND,
AMERICAN, GIGI). By contrast, those lower in nos-
NOSTALGIA AND CONSUMER TASTES 251

FIGURE 1
PREFERENCESPACE FOR MOVIESWITHATTRIBUTE-,GENDER, AGE-, AND NOSTALGIA-RELATED
VECTORS: STUDY 1
Dim. 2
Dt Men (R=0.94)
DEER

GODFATHER1

GODFATHER2
FRENCH
U
PTO
PATTON

FLEW -
ROCKYPLATOON BR1IGE

MARTY
STING SHOW
(R=O81) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~MUTINY
te|Age )
(R=0.81 (R=0. 18)
I EN COWBOY

JONES AGREEMENT

!'l
WATERfRONT HEAT
FRONTZIEGFELD CAVALCADE
CIMARRON

CAN'T APARTMENT
-ZOLA------SEVENTH---------WEEKEND--- -;--------------------------------------ZOLA SEVENTH--WEEKEND--------
HAMLET YEARS WINGS Dim- 1
GOING HOTEL

ENDEARMENT ~ORDINARY
ORDINARY ANNIE LA RENCE MLD A
ENDEARMENT AROUND/ IME
AMADEUS |
ETERNITY MINIVER
RAIN CASABLANCA I
WEST I | HAPPENED
EMPEROR
GANDHI
CHARIOTS
EVE
OLIVER REBECCA GREEN
GONE

AMERIA IGI?I

OUT SOUND AMERICA

FAIR
Nostalgia
(R=0.51) 4

Musicat (R=0.70)

talgia proneness display a relative preference for more
violent movies (DEER, GODFATHER 1, PATTON,
GODFATHER2, FRENCH).
Implications
The results from study 1 go some way toward sup-
porting the general perspective pursued in the present
research. First, a reduced set of eight nostalgia-related
items appears to possess satisfactory reliability and uni-
dimensionality as an index of nostalgia proneness. Sec-
ond, this nostalgia scale shows little or no redundancy
with gender or age. Third, preferences toward motion
pictures appear to hang together in a manner partially
accounted for by two dimensions that make sense in-
tuitively. Fourth, the intuitive interpretation of the di-
mensions is supported by well-fitting attribute vectors
based on independent observations of time period and
movie content. Fifth, these dimensions are related in a
reasonable way to differential preferences associated
with gender and nostalgia proneness such that women
and those high in nostalgia proneness tend relatively to
prefer more tenderhearted and musical films, while men
and those low in nostalgia proneness tend to show a
differential preference for motion pictures that depict
violence and warfare.
However, these five implications of study 1 leave cer-
tain questions unanswered. First, because the reduced
set of eight items derived in this first study may depend
in part on search bias, it remains to be seen whether
they will show satisfactory reliability and unidimen-
sionality when tested on a new sample. Second, because

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252
the age-homogeneous nature of the first sample left little
scope for statistical association between age and the
nostalgia scale, the apparent independence of these two
constructs requires further assessment on a second
sample of respondents who show a greater range in ages.
Third and fourth, the apparently reasonable spatial
representation derived for the 62 films needs checking
for reliability and validity. Fifth, the conclusion that
gender and nostalgia proneness are meaningfully related
to movie preferences awaits further exploration on a
sample of respondents who do show heterogeneity with
respect to age. The analyses conducted in study 2 were
intended to address these questions posed by study 1.
RESULTS: STUDY 2
The Nostalgia Scale
A confirmatory maximum-likelihood factor analysis
based on the eight nostalgia items selected in the first
study produced the factor loadings and z-values shown
on the right-hand side of Table 2. For study 2, the
smallest z-value is 3.8, indicating that all loadings are
statistically significant at p < .0001 or better. The test
of fit suggests that the single-factor model would be re-
jected at the .05 but not at the .01 level of statistical
significance: X2 = 32.1 (df = 20, p = .04). Further, the
Tucker-Lewis reliability coefficient appears reassuring
at 0.90 (somewhat better than the value of about 0.86
obtained by Marsh et al. [ 1988] for "well-defined" data).
The construct reliability of the factor and coefficient
alpha for the corresponding summative index were both
0.73. Accordingly, factor scores on this nostalgia scale
were used as a measure of nostalgia proneness for the
remainder of the analyses presented here.
Gender, Age, and the Nostalgia Scale
As in the first study, women scored somewhat higher
than men on the nostalgia scale (r = -0.21, p = .01).
Again, however, no significant correlation appeared be-
tween age and nostalgia (r =-0.1 1, NS). Further, shared
variance between nostalgia and gender (r2 = 0.04) or
age (r2 = 0.01) was small enough in both cases to in-
dicate that no serious confounding or redundancy ap-
peared between these three general consumer charac-
teristics. Most importantly, this statistical independence
suggests that nostalgia proneness and age are separate
constructs, even when the latter varies across a wide
range of heterogeneity.
PreferenceSpace for Movies
A principal components analysis of relative liking
scores for the 62 movies across 156 respondents pro-
duced an elbow in eigenvalues after the second com-
ponent, according to the following sequence: 5.94, 5.03,
3.95, 3.32, 2.84, 2.59, 2.03, and so forth. The first two
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JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH
dimensions appeared clearly interpretable. For these
reasons and to preserve comparability with the spatial
representation described in the first study, further anal-
yses were based on these first two principal components.
Table 1 presents the loadings for the 62 movies on
these two principal components. Again, as shown in
Figure 2, interpretation is facilitated by plotting the
loadings of the movies on the first (horizontal) and sec-
ond (vertical) dimensions. This spatial representation
again suggests a tendency for more recent films (Rocky,
The Godfather, The Deer Hunter, Platoon) to load
heavily in the negative direction to the left on dimension
1 and for earlier films (How Green Was My Valley, Mrs.
Miniver, Grand Hotel, Rebecca) to load heavily in the
positive direction to the right. Meanwhile, dimension
2 again appears to distinguish vertically between more
tender or musical movies in the negative direction at
the bottom (My Fair Lady, Out of Africa, Kramervs.
Kramer, WestSide Story, Terms of Endearment)and
more violent or military films in the positive direction
at the top (The Bridge on the River Kwai, Patton, The
Deer Hunter, The FrenchConnection,All Quiet on the
WesternFront).
A central question concerns the degree to which the
spatial representation from this second study matches
that derived earlier from the first set of data. On the
basis of the similar interpretations offered for the hor-
izontal and vertical axes, it appears that the correspon-
dence is quite close. This impression was confirmed by
regressing the spatial positions on each dimension of
each space on those for the two dimensions of the other
spatial representation to determine the overall shared
variance in spatial positions between the two preference
spaces. Here, the root mean squared multiple correla-
tion between the preference spaces from studies 1 and
2 (the same in either direction) was 0.85. This indicates
a good fit between the spatial representations found in
the two studies and therefore a satisfactory degree of
reliability for conclusions based on interpretations of
the horizontal and vertical dimensions.
AttributeVectors
This point concerning the reliability of the interpre-
tation was further supported by evidence for its validity
in the form of attribute vectors for date and musical
content (using the measures described earlier). The rel-
evant attribute vectors appear in Figure 2.
First, the date vector points strongly to the left
(r = -0.7 1, p < .0001) and somewhat downward
(r =-0.35, p < .005) with an overall multiple regression
fit of R = 0.79 (F(2,59) = 49.1, p < .0001). The more
recent films tend to project toward the head of this vec-
tor (RAIN, KRAMER, ENDEARMENT), while the
older movies tend to project toward its tail (GREEN,
BRIDGE, FRONT, MINIVER). Hence, the strong as-
sociation between the horizontal axis and the date-re-
lated attribute vector again supports the interpretation
of this horizontal dimension suggested earlier.
NOSTALGIA AND CONSUMER TASTES 253

FIGURE2
PREFERENCESPACE FOR MOVIESWITHATTRIBUTE-,GENDER-, AGE-, AND NOSTALGIA-RELATED
VECTORS: STUDY 2
Dim. 2
Men (R=0.92) T t

\ \\ | BRIDGE
PATTON

DEER FRENCH FRONT

\ \ \ ? CIMARRON
SHOW I
CAVALCADE
MUTINY
GODFATHER2
BEN LAWRENCE GREEN
STING
PLATOON
GODFATHER1 GOING

ROCKY HEAT \:\

I ~~~~~~~WEEKEND
I MEN WINGS AGREEMENT MINIVER (R=D.86)

MELODY Age
MARTY ZIEGFELD MAN

APARTMENT HAPPENED
CASABLANCA \ WATERFRONT HOTEL

COWBO A OUND ETERNITY

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~D
1
HAMLET
YEARS
FLEW JONES
EMPEROR i

/ C~~~~ANDHI i \\
CHARIOTS

GON
EVE
/ ~~~~~~~~
~~~OLIVER
| \

/ ~~ANNIE ~
~~~~ ~ \\
|
\GI GIGI
\\ \
REBECCA
AMADEUS

RAI N ORDINARY AMERICAN

Date
Date SOUND

(R=0.79)
ENDEARMENT
KRAMER WEST \
OUT
FAIR

Nostalgia
(R=0.58)

Musical (R=0.75)

Second, the musical vector lies close to the vertical with a regression fit of R = 0.92 (F(2,59) = 167.2, p
axis (r = -0.66, p < .0001) with a drift toward the right < .0001). It appears that men again tend relatively to
(r = 0.34, p = .006) and an overall multiple regression prefer the more violent movies at the top of the pref-
fit of R = 0.75 (F(2,59) = 37.2,p < .0001). The musicals erence space, whereas women again show a relative
fall toward the head of this vector near the bottom right liking for the more tenderhearted and musical films
of the space (FAIR, AMERICAN, GIGI, WEST, at the bottom.
SOUND), while the war movies and other violent films This time, by virtue of the age-heterogeneous nature
lie at the vector's tail near the top left of the space of the sample, the age-related vector does show a strong
(DEER, FRENCH, GODFATHER2, PLATOON, and highly significant fit with the spatial representation:
GODFATHER1). Hence, the direction and fit of this R = 0.86 (F(2,59) = 81.4, p < .0001). As shown in
musical vector once more support the earlier interpre- Figure 2, this age vector lies close to the horizontal axis
tation. and suggests that older respondents express relative
preferences for the movies of earlier vintage located to-
Gender-, Age-, and Nostalgia-related ward the right of the space (GREEN, MINIVER,
Preference Vectors HOTEL), whereas younger respondents tend relatively
As further shown in Figure 2, the gender-related to prefer the more recent films positioned toward the
vector again adheres closely to the vertical axis, left side (ROCKY, GODFATHER1, DEER).

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254
Finally,the nostalgiavector again shows a close cor-
respondence with the vertical axis generally and the
musicalvector in particularand achieves a moderately
strong degree of fit: R = 0.58 (F(2,59) = 15.0,p <.0001).
This again indicates that those higher in nostalgia
proneness tend relatively to prefer musicals and ten-
derhearted films (FAIR, AMERICAN, REBECCA,
GIGI, OUT). Conversely, those lower in nostal-
gia proneness again show a relative preference for
violent and militaristic movies (DEER, FRENCH,
GODFATHER2,PATTON).Hence, the findingsfrom
study2 supportthe implicationfrom study 1 that those
higherin nostalgiapronenessdisplaya differentialpref-
erence for motion pictures with more sentiment and
less violence or more music and less warfare.
DISCUSSION
Limitations
As is common in researchon consumerbehavior,the
findings reported in this study are subject to certain
important limitations and caveats. For example, dif-
ferentresultsmightbe obtainedwith differentproducts
(e.g., household nondurables), with different movies
(box-officehits or art films), with a differentmeasure
of nostalgiaproneness(depth interviewsor some other
standardizedtest), with more narrowlydefinedage co-
horts (young adults, senior citizens, or baby boomers),
with respondentsfrom differentsocioeconomic strata
(the homeless or blue-collar workers), with a sample
more representativeof the U.S. population (a national
probabilitysample), or with people from differentcul-
tures(developingcountriesor ethnic minorities).These
possibilities deserve investigation in future consumer
researchon age, nostalgiaproneness, and related phe-
nomena.
Other important questions that must await further
research concern comparisons of the nostalgia scale
proposedhere with two alternativemeasuresthat have
come to light subsequentto collecting the data used in
these studies.Specifically,relevantmeasuresdeveloped
by two environmentalpsychologistsassess "antiquari-
anism" (McKechnie 1974) and "appreciationof direct
experiencewith the past" (Taylor and Konrad 1980).
Questions therefore arise concerning how these mea-
sures relate to the present nostalgia scale in terms of
such issues as convergent/discriminantvalidity, con-
currentvalidity with respectto consumer preferences,
and predictivevalidity in connection with future con-
sumption behavior.
We should also acknowledgethat the treatment of
nostalgia pursued here (in connection with age and
nostalgiaproneness)may have been too coarsegrained
to capturecertaincomplexitiesand subtletiesthat might
operate at a more fine-tuned level of detail. Thus, as
noted earlier,our definition of nostalgiadoes not dis-
tinguishbetweena dry-eyedliking for objects from the
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JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH
past and the sort of wistful sentimentality that causes
some people to shed a tear or to overflow with gushing
emotions when they reminisce about products from the
good old days. Further, this study has subsumed a va-
riety of consumption-related experiences under the
general heading of nostalgia. These would include not
only a liking for older products (e.g., film classics) but
also an attachment to sentimental offerings (e.g., movie
musicals). Here, we may have neglected complications
that might arise in the form of "mixed cases." For ex-
ample, it may be nostalgic to like Rebecca better than
The Deer Hunter; but it would be even more nostalgic
to prefer the Hitchcock original in black-and-white and
to abhor a colorized version. Moreover, nostalgia as-
sociated with a particular era may be highly selective
in its focus. For example, one could fondly recall Marty
from 1955 while disliking Around the World in 80 Days
from 1956. Also, one's nostalgic feelings could be con-
flated with certain negative aspects-as when remi-
niscing with ambivalence about an old romantic co-
medy that was well acted but tedious or a thriller that
was exciting but conducive to bad dreams. Again, all
these issues await further exploration in future con-
sumer research on nostalgia.
Conclusions
Subject to these limitations, the findings appear to
offer clear support for the importance of nostalgia as a
phenomenon that affects the preference patterns of
consumers who do (study 2) or do not (study 1) vary
widely in age but who differ (both studies) in their levels
of nostalgia proneness. Further, in connection with age,
nostalgia proneness, and time-related taste preferences
(in this case, for movies), the research suggests answers
to five important questions addressed by the convergent
results for studies 1 and 2.
First, an eight-item nostalgia scale based on an ex-
ploratory maximum-likelihood factor analysis con-
ducted in study 1 shows an acceptable fit when validated
on an independent sample in study 2. This robustness
of the results for the nostalgia scale-based on confir-
matory factor analysis of the eight statements listed in
Table 2-suggests its potential usefulness in further re-
search comparing it to possible alternative measures of
nostalgia proneness.
Second, although both age (as a chronological vari-
able) and nostalgia proneness (as an individual char-
acteristic) are logically connected to nostalgia-related
preferences, the evidence suggests that they are not con-
founded in such a way as to be redundant. Thus,
whether the sample is homogeneous or heterogeneous
with respect to age, only trivial variance is shared be-
tween age and nostalgia proneness. This suggests that
the two measures represent different constructs and that
an individual propensity toward nostalgia proneness
operates independently of the aging process.
Third, preference spaces for a set of 62 Oscar-winning
movies are reliable between the two studies and appear
NOSTALGIAAND CONSUMER TASTES
to represent valid aspects of nostalgia-related taste pref-
erences. Thus, one dimension reflects the era in which
a movie was produced (older vs. newer), while a second
captures the difference between tenderhearted and vi-
olent films (musicals vs. war stories). In terms of face
validity, these taste clusters appear to be plausibly re-
lated to factors associated with age and nostalgia prone-
ness.
Fourth, the interpretation of the spatial dimensions
just suggested receives convincing support from attri-
bute vectors constructed in both studies 1 and 2 to rep-
resent the date when a movie won its Oscar and the
musical (vs. violent) nature of its content. Although
different dimensions would of course be needed to de-
scribe the structures of preferences in other product
categories, these findings for movies do support the face
validity of a connection between consumer tastes and
nostalgia in the area of popular entertainment.
Fifth, the spatial representations just described appear
to reflect strong gender-, age-, and nostalgia-related
preference patterns consistent with a general orientation
toward the role of nostalgia in the consumption expe-
rience. Specifically, women express relative preferences
for musical movies, whereas men tend relatively to pre-
fer more violent films. This finding may reflect an im-
portant gender-related difference in cultural tastes
(Joyrich 1990; Morley 1986; Press 1991, pp. 144, 159),
but it is not directly relevant to the key aspects of nos-
talgia (age and nostalgia proneness) emphasized here.
With respect to age-a variable held constant and
therefore not a meaningful source of variation in study
1-older versus younger respondents tend relatively to
prefer earlier as opposed to more recent films as indi-
cated by the findings in study 2. Meanwhile, with respect
to nostalgia proneness, those higher versus lower in
nostalgia express a relative liking for tender or musical
as opposed to violent or military movies in both studies.
Further, and quite important, the directions of the sig-
nificant age and nostalgia vectors in study 2 are basically
orthogonal in the preference space-one horizontal, the
other vertical-indicating that, even when age varies
over a wide range in the sample of interest, the effect
of nostalgia proneness works independently of age.
Thus, in general, older respondents tend relatively to
prefer earlier films, whereas those higher in nostalgia
proneness show differential preferences for tender mu-
sicals. Clearly, both phenomena are nostalgic. But the
former refers to temporally related aspects of age, the
latter to sentimental aspects of nostalgia proneness as
a psychographic variable. Hence, one cannot capture
consumption phenomena related to nostalgia by look-
ing at either age or nostalgia proneness in isolation.
Both constructs are needed to obtain a full picture of
the nostalgic patterns in consumer preferences.
Summary
This research has moved some distance toward dem-
onstrating two key aspects of nostalgic consumption
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255
preferences-namely, factors related to age (a demo-
graphic variable) and those linked to nostalgia prone-
ness (a psychographic characteristic). In essence, two
studies have shown in different ways that-for samples
both homogeneous and heterogeneous with respect to
age-the effects of age and nostalgia proneness appear
to operate independently in shaping consumer prefer-
ences. Specifically, consumers higher in nostalgia
proneness tend relatively to like more tenderhearted or
musical films in both studies; whereas, when age varies,
older consumers tend to favor earlier movies. More
generally, therefore, it appears that nostalgia (age and
nostalgia proneness working together) does play a role
in shaping consumption preferences by influencing
patterns of consumer tastes.
APPENDIX
Twenty Statements Representing Nostalgia
Proneness
1. They don't make 'em like they used to.
2. Newer is almost always better [reversed].
3. In the future, people will have even better lives [re-
versed].
4. Things used to be better in the good old days.
5. I believe in the constant march of progress [re-
versed].
6. Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away.
7. Products are getting shoddier and shoddier.
8. Compared to our parents, we've got it good [re-
versed].
9. Technological change will insure a brighter future
[reversed].
10. When I was younger, I was happier than I am today.
11. Today's new movie stars could learn from the old
pros.
12. I must admit it's getting better, better all the time
[reversed].
13. The truly great sports heroes are long dead and
gone.
14. History involves a steady improvement in human
welfare [reversed].
15. Today's standard of living is the highest ever at-
tained [reversed].
16. Sometimes, I wish I could return to the womb.
17. We are experiencing a decline in the quality of life.
18. Steady growth in GNP has brought increased hu-
man happiness [reversed].
19. Compared to the classics, today's music is mostly
trash.
20. Modern business constantly builds a better tomor-
row [reversed].
[Received March 1992. Revised February 1993.]
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