Testing the Effects of Recalled Nostalgia on Empathy and Perceived Social Support: Unexpected Nonreplication in an American Sample

American undergraduate students were randomly assigned to recall and write about a nostalgic or ordinary event, successfully manipulating nostalgia. Unexpectedly, subsequent measures of empathy and perceived social support found no significant differences between conditions. Exploratory analyses suggested that nostalgia related to loss and/or grief was more strongly correlated with empathy.