For centuries nostalgia was viewed as an illness of the brain or mind. The consensus was that nostalgia caused physical and mental distress and by orienting people’s attention to the past, it prevented them from living fully and healthily in the present. However, this view lacked scientific support. In recent years, social psychologists have employed scientific methods to more systematically consider the psychological effects of nostalgia. Findings from these studies refute previous theories that labeled nostalgia as an illness. Instead, this research demonstrates that nostalgia is good for psychological health and helps people cope with adversity. Further, nostalgia makes people more generous, helpful, and kind.
Most of us are personally familiar with the experience of nostalgia – a sentimental longing for the past. Indeed, surveys indicate that the majority of adults, regardless of age, engage in nostalgia at least once a week (Hepper et al., 2014; Wildschut, Sedikides, Arndt, & Routledge, 2006). Posting photos for Throwback Thursday on Facebook, firing up that 90s playlist on our Ipods, and chatting with a good friend about that crazy road trip we took in college are just a few examples of the many ways that we regularly do nostalgia.
And nostalgia is big business. Consider, for example, the motion picture industry. Billions of dollars have been made by rebooting or creating sequels to film franchises from decades past. The music industry similarly reaps the financial benefits of selling repackaged versions of “the classics”. And of course, social media is thriving, in part, by capitalizing on people’s desire to reconnect with past relationships. From this perspective, nostalgia seems like a desirable state. People want to revisit the past. And if they are willing to spend their time and money on this endeavor, they must get something out of it, right?
This view of nostalgia as a popular and desired experience stands in stark contrast to historical conceptualizations. Coined in the late 17th century by the Swiss physician Johannes Hofer, the term nostalgia was employed well into the 20th century to describe psychologically vulnerable individuals in distress (Davis 1979). To be nostalgic was to be ill. Hofer believed nostalgia to be a cerebral disease and one confined to Swiss soldiers and mercenaries fighting wars far from their homeland. Symptoms of this disease included irregular heartbeat, anxiety, insomnia, and disordered eating. It gets worse. Hofer postulated that nostalgia was of demonic origin.
Other physicians of that era had their own, but no less entertaining, perspectives. For example, one idea that was floated was that nostalgia was a Swiss disease resulting from damage caused to the ears and brain by the non-stop clanging of cowbells in the Alps. Over the next couple hundred years, theorists and practitioners would differ in the particulars on how they viewed nostalgia, but they all agreed on one thing. Nostalgia was an illness (see Sedikides, Wildschut, Arndt, & Routledge, 2008). It was bad for psychological and perhaps even physical health. So which is it? Is nostalgia something to be valued, a desirable experience that people should embrace? Or is it an unhealthy activity, an experience that people should avoid (to the extent that one can avoid demons and cowbells)?
Putting Nostalgia to the Test
The problem with historical considerations of nostalgia is that they lacked scientific rigor. For example, in the past, clinicians might have observed that a patient who expressed a longing for some aspect of their past also experienced distress. Based on this, they may have concluded that the longing for the past was nostalgia and distress was the consequence of this longing. However, a major drawback with this type of correlation-based observation is that the direction of the relationship is entirely unclear. How does one know that nostalgia is the problem, the source of distress? Another possibility is that distress precedes nostalgia. Maybe people turn to nostalgia as a means to counter or cope with negative life experiences and unpleasant emotions. If this were the case, nostalgia would not be a cause of distress but instead a means of treating it. Another problem is that scholars and practitioners of past likely failed to distinguish nostalgia from emotions such as homesickness. A more scientifically sophisticated approach to the study of nostalgia was needed. But it would be some decades before nostalgia would receive serious scientific scrutiny.
In the latter part of the 20th century marketing researchers and consumer psychologists began to study nostalgia in the context of consumer behavior. Researchers observed, for example, that people have an affinity for products that originated during their youth (e.g., Holbrook, 1993). People tend to like the cars, music, and movies that were produced and sold during their teenage years. As previously mentioned, nostalgia is a powerful economic force. People desire opportunities to revisit the past and all sorts of consumer products facilitate this mental time travel. These marketing studies were, however, more focused on nostalgia’s relation to consumption than on its psychological effects. The question remained: What are the psychological consequences of nostalgia?
With the goal of answering this and related questions, about ten years ago, social psychologists began to systematically study the psychology nostalgia (see Routledge, Wildschut, Sedikides, & Juhl, 2013). The first task was to detail the experience of nostalgia. When people engage in nostalgia, what are they thinking about? What emotions are present in nostalgic memories? To answer these questions, Wildschut and colleagues (2006) content-analyzed people’s written accounts of nostalgic memories. Results from this work indicate that nostalgic memories are good memories. These memories tend to be focused on personally cherished life experiences shared with close others (e.g., family functions, vacations, holidays, weddings, graduations). Further, nostalgic memories contain more positive than negative emotional references. When negative feelings are present in these memories, they tend give way to an emotionally positive conclusion. For example, a person’s nostalgia may involve sadness about missing friends from college she no longer gets to spend time with but will likely also include feelings of gratitude for the time shared with these individuals and maybe even a sense of hope that she will one day see them again.
A number of recent studies corroborate this analysis of nostalgia (Abeyta et al., in press; Hepper, Ritchie, Sedikides, & Wildschut, 2012; Stephan, Sedikides, & Wildschut, 2012). In all, the research clearly indicates that nostalgia involves people revisiting the life experiences that make them feel, happy, loved, and meaningful. This hardly seems like the type of experience that would lead to mental anguish.
Based on the results of these initial studies, researchers proposed that nostalgia would lead to positive, not negative, psychological states (see Routledge et al., 2013). A number of published experiments support this proposal. In these experiments nostalgia is typically induced by having participants reflect on an experience they are nostalgic about or listen to music that they have identified as nostalgic. Participants in control conditions reflect on other, non-nostalgic autobiographical experiences or listen to music that they have not identified as nostalgic. Subsequently, all participants complete questionnaires related to psychological health and well-being.
Using this general paradigm, researchers have found that nostalgia, relative to a control condition, increases positive mood (Wildschut et al., 2006), feelings of belongingness (Routledge et al., 2011; Wildschut et al., 2006; Zhou, Sedikides, Wildschut, & Gao, 2008), self-esteem (Vess et al., 2012; Wildschut et al., 2006), perceptions of meaning in life (Routledge, Arndt, Sedikides, & Wildschut 2008; Routledge et al., 2011; Routledge et al., 2012), and optimism about the future (Chueng et al., 2013). In addition, despite the fact that nostalgic memories may contain some negative emotions (e.g., sadness), engaging in nostalgia does not increase negative mood (Abeyta et al., in press; Wildschut et al., 2006). In all, the effects of nostalgia are positive.
But What about Distress?
The contemporary scientific research is at odds with historical accounts of nostalgia. Nostalgia does not lead to emotional suffering. It does not undermine mental health. Instead, nostalgia leads to a number of positive psychological states. So let us consider the assertion that distress is the cause, not effect of nostalgia. Researchers proposed that because it leads to positive psychological states, people may turn to nostalgia in response to psychological threat (see Routledge et al., 2013). That is, distress may trigger nostalgia. Numerous studies now support this possibility. For example, Wildschut and colleagues (2006) manipulated mood by having participants read one of three news articles and then measured nostalgia. More specifically, participants in a negative mood condition read an article about the wide destruction that resulted from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Participants in a positive mood condition read a lighthearted article about the birth of a polar bear at the London Zoo. Who doesn’t love baby bears? Participants in a neutral mood condition read an article about the unmanned probe mission to Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. All of the participants then completed questionnaires assessing current levels of nostalgia. In one of these questionnaires, they rated the extent to which they missed different aspects of their past (e.g., family, friends, holidays; Batcho, 1995). The second questionnaire contained items directly assessing feelings of nostalgia (e.g., “Right now I am feeling nostalgic”). Results supported the claim that psychological threat triggers nostalgia. Participants who read the negative mood inducing article about the tsunami indicated feeling more nostalgic than participants who read the neutral and positive mood inducing articles. Negative emotions inspire nostalgia, not the other way around.
Other studies further showcase that when people are psychologically vulnerable or threatened, they are motivated to engage in nostalgia. For example, Routledge and colleagues (2011) manipulated perceptions of existential meaning by having some participants read a philosophical essay that highlighted how transient and cosmically insignificant human life is. You know, they type of material you read in an introductory philosophy class or the poetry of a disillusioned teenager. The remaining participants read an essay about the limits of computer technology. Participants then completed a nostalgia questionnaire. Mirroring the results of the study evidencing that negative mood increases nostalgia, reading the existentially depressing article provoked nostalgia. Philosophy majors must be a nostalgic bunch.
Loneliness similarly evokes nostalgia. For example, Wildschut and colleagues (2006) manipulated loneliness experimentally by having participants complete what they believed to be a loneliness assessment and then presenting them with false feedback that, relative to their university peers, they had scored high or low on this assessment. Next, participants completed a nostalgia questionnaire. Again, psychological threat triggered nostalgia. Participants in the high loneliness condition were subsequently more nostalgic than participants in the low loneliness questionnaire.
The Redemption of Nostalgia
The research previously described is just a sample of recent studies on the psychology of nostalgia. In all, experimental research paints a clear picture. Nostalgia is not the cause of mental agony. It is a solution to it. When people face life experiences that make the feel sad, alone, and without purpose, they can revisit personally treasured experiences from their past to reassure themselves that things are ok. Take, for instance, a recent series of studies by Zhou and colleagues (2008) exploring the relationship between loneliness, nostalgia, and perceptions of social support. These researchers observed, not surprisingly, that when people feel lonely they also feel like they have little support from others. Loneliness makes you feel like no one cares about or values you. However, these researchers also observed that loneliness led to nostalgia and that nostalgia in turn increased perceptions of social support. In other words, nostalgia helped counter the negative effects of loneliness. When people feel lonely they can reflect nostalgically on the past to remind themselves that there are people who care about and value them. And engaging in this exercise restores those perceptions of social support that are compromised by loneliness. People recruit nostalgia to cope with threatening feelings and experiences.
So there is good reason that nostalgia is so prevalent in our society. In fact, studies suggest that nostalgia is very common across diverse cultures (e.g., Routledge et a., 2011; Zhou et al., 2008). Nostalgia is not a mental weakness or distraction that keeps people from living healthy lives in the present. It is a resource that promotes psychological health. Nostalgia gives people the inner strength and positive outlook needed to move forward in life and take on new challenges.
In addition, emerging research is exposing the many ways that nostalgia leads to positive outcomes well beyond the mental health of the nostalgic person. For example, recent studies observed that when people feel nostalgic, they are more likely to offer help to someone in need (Stephan et al., in press) and donate to charity (Zhou et al., 2012). Nostalgia also appears to increase positive attitudes towards stigmatized groups such as people who are overweight (Turner, Wildschut, & Sedikides, 2012) or who suffer from mental illness (Turner, Wildschut, Sedikides, & Gheorghiu, 2013). In all, nostalgia does not just make individuals feel good about their own lives. It also inclines them to empathize with and help others. Nostalgia benefits society. So keep doing nostalgia. It is good for you and those around you.
References
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