National prostalgia is associated with decreases in ingroup protection, outgroup derogation, and support for Donald Trump's presidency

National nostalgia is a mechanism through which intergroup hostility is catalyzed. In contrast, national prostalgia has been shown to benefit individuals due to its optimistic and motivational functions. Collective forms of future-oriented thinking, such as national prostalgia, predict increases in support for agents of change in society. Few studies, though, have investigated how future-oriented variables are linked to prejudice or support for political candidates. Thus, we investigated how national nostalgia and prostalgia may predict prejudice (Study 1, N = 177) and support for Donald Trump and Joe Biden (Study 2, N = 110). As hypothesized, national nostalgia and prostalgia respectively predicted increases and decreases in ingroup protection, outgroup derogation, and support for Donald Trump. Neither national nostalgia nor prostalgia predicted support for Joe Biden. In Study 1, there was a suppression effect, such that national prostalgia was only a significant predictor of intergroup attitudes when national nostalgia was a predictor in the models. These findings were not a result of individual optimism, political conservatism, gender, age, or associating Trump with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. These results highlight that national prostalgia and nostalgia are distinct psychological phenomena associated with unique consequences.