magazine issue 8 2014 / Issue 22

Revisiting the past can make the present a better place: The psychological and social benefits of nostalgia

• written by Clay Routledge
• edited by Dylan Selterman

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.