Attitude Toward the Ad (Pre-Birth Era Nostalgia)

What it measures

A six-item scale measuring the degree to which an advertisement evokes nostalgic feelings for an era that predates the respondent's own birth — historical nostalgia for a romanticised past the individual did not personally experience. Items tap positive affect about a pre-birth era, wistful longing for an inaccessible historical time, and pleasant associations with depictions of that earlier period. Theoretically distinct from personal nostalgia (rooted in autobiographical memory) and general nostalgia (temporally unspecified), this scale captures what has been termed 'historical' or 'vicarious' nostalgia.

Representative items

• Makes me feel good about a previous time – a time before my birth.
• Makes me wish I could go back to a time before I was born.
• Reminds me of an era before my birth.

Citation

Muehling, Darrel D. and Vincent J. Parscal (2011). An empirical investigation of the differential effects of personal, historical, and non-nostalgic advertising on consumer responses. Journal of Advertising, 40(2), 107–122.