Collective Nostalgia Widens the Gap Between Obsessive and Harmonious Passion in Support for Political Violence

ABSTRACT

Collective nostalgia—a longing for a group's shared past—carries both a sweet pull toward ingroup connection and a sour potential for outgroup hostility. We propose that these divergent associations depend on the form of passion people hold for their political cause. Drawing on the dualistic model of passion, we distinguished obsessive passion, a pressured form of ideological involvement tied to self‐worth, from harmonious passion, freely endorsed and integrated with other commitments. In a cross‐sectional survey of U.S. Democrats ( N  = 263) and Republicans ( N  = 154), participants reported their passion for their party, collective nostalgia for its past, ideological commitment, and support for political violence against the rival party. In both subsamples, obsessive passion was associated with greater support for political violence, whereas harmonious passion was not. Collective nostalgia moderated both associations in opposite directions: at higher levels of nostalgia, the obsessive‐passion link was stronger, whereas the harmonious‐passion link turned negative, predicting lower support for political violence. These patterns held across parties, controlling for ideological commitment. Collective nostalgia thus appears not uniformly radicalizing; longing for a shared past accompanied greater support for political violence at higher levels of obsessive passion but lower support at higher levels of harmonious passion.