ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Positive Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1645603
Relatedness needs satisfaction or ego depletion? The effect of leisure nostalgia on life satisfaction
Provisionally accepted
- 1Hainan Medical University, Haikou, China
- 2East China Normal University, Shanghai, China
- 3Hainan Tropical Ocean University, Sanya, China
- 4Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai, China
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Background: Previous studies focused on the positive aspects of leisure nostalgia in relation to positive outcomes, overlooking its negative aspects and the possibility of negative effects. Based on the basic psychological needs theory and self-regulation theory, we tested whether relatedness need satisfaction and ego depletion mediated positive and negative effects of leisure nostalgia, respectively, and whether these mediation processes were moderated by self-regulatory capacity. Methods: We collected two waves of questionnaire data with a one-month interval from 391 university students. The instruments used in this study included demographic characteristics and questionnaires of ego depletion, leisure nostalgia, life satisfaction, relatedness need satisfaction, self-regulatory capacity. Data analysis was performed using the SPSS and Mplus. Results: Leisure nostalgia was positively related to university student life satisfaction via higher relatedness need satisfaction (indirect effect = .11, 95% CI [.052, .161]), and this indirect effect was stronger for students with higher vs. lower self-regulatory capacity (index = .03, 95% CI [.003, .062]). By contrast, the mediating effect of ego depletion in the relationship between leisure nostalgia and lower life satisfaction was not significant (indirect effect = -.01, 95% CI [-.020, .011]). Conclusions: Findings from this study suggest that leisure nostalgia is a predominantly positive emotional experience that can promote university students' life satisfaction. The results have practical implications for designing programs to enhance university students' leisure nostalgia, self-regulation capacity, and life satisfaction.
Keywords: Basic psychological needs theory, Ego Depletion, Leisure nostalgia, life satisfaction, Relatedness need satisfaction, self-regulatory capacity, Self-regulation theory
Received: 12 Jun 2025; Accepted: 15 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Li, Xi, Yeran, Aifen and Yanwei. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Juzhe Xi, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China
Shi Yanwei, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai, China
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