Pancultural nostalgia in action: Prevalence, triggers, and psychological functions of nostalgia across cultures.

Abstract

Nostalgia is a social, self-relevant, and bittersweet (although mostly positive) emotion that arises when reflecting on fond past memories and serves key psychological functions. The majority of evidence concerning the prevalence, triggers, and functions of nostalgia has been amassed in samples from a handful of largely Western cultures. If nostalgia is a fundamental psychological resource, it should perform similar functions across cultures, although its operational dynamics may be shaped by culture. This study (N = 2,606) examined dispositional nostalgia, self-reported triggers of nostalgia, and functions of experimentally induced nostalgia in young adults across 28 countries and a special administrative region of China (i.e., Hong Kong). Results indicated that nostalgia is frequently experienced across cultures, albeit better valued in more-developed countries (i.e., higher national wealth and life-expectancy). Nostalgia is triggered by psychological threats (especially in warmer countries), sensory stimuli (especially in more-developed countries), and social gatherings (especially in less-developed countries). The positive or negative affect prompted by experimentally induced nostalgia varied by country, but was mild overall. More importantly, recalling a nostalgic (vs. ordinary) memory increased social connectedness, self-continuity, and meaning in life across cultures. In less-developed countries, recalling an ordinary memory also conferred some of these functions, reducing the effect size of nostalgia. Finally, recalling a nostalgic (vs. ordinary) memory augmented state satisfaction with life in countries with lower quality of living (i.e., lower life-expectancy and life-satisfaction). Overall, findings confirm the relevance of nostalgia across a wide range of cultures and indicate cultural nuances in its functioning.

Unique affective profile of music-evoked nostalgia: An extension and conceptual replication of Barrett et al.’s (2010) study.

“…This finding has sometimes been explained in terms of a “maladaptation view,” a view proposed in the 17th century (for English translation, see Anspach, 1934) in which nostalgia is understood as a tendency to ruminate, retreating to the past to avoid the problems of the present (e.g., Garrido, 2018; Kaplan, 1987; Zinchenko, 2011). However, this view has little empirical support and is instead refuted by many pieces of counterevidence demonstrating the adaptive functions of nostalgia (Frankenbach et al, 2021; Hepper et al, 2024; Umar Ismail et al, 2020). Thus, we instead interpret this finding in terms of the Regulatory Model of Nostalgia (Wildschut & Sedikides, 2023), in which discomforting situations elicit nostalgia and the nostalgia alleviates discomfort (Wang et al, 2023, 2024).…”

“…Nostalgia is a mixed emotion (Hepper et al, 2024; Holak & Havlena, 1998; Turner & Stanley, 2021), eliciting primarily positive (Hepper et al, 2012; Leunissen et al, 2021; Sedikides et al, 2015; Wildschut et al, 2006) and peripherally negative (Hepper et al, 2012; Holak & Havlena, 1998; Turner & Stanley, 2021) feelings, and is often accompanied by an autobiographical memory (Wildschut et al, 2006). While conceptualizations have varied across the past 3 centuries (Batcho, 2013), nostalgia is defined today as “a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for a return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition” (Merriam-Webster, 2022) and “a feeling of pleasure and also slight sadness when you think about things that happened in the past” (Cambridge Dictionary, 2024).…”

“…Music-evoked nostalgia is commonly reported by individuals across the age spectrum (Hanson et al, 2022) and cultures (Hanson et al, 2022; Hepper et al, 2024; Saarikallio et al, 2021). When the participants are asked to indicate discrete emotions experienced when listening to music, nostalgia is consistently top-ranked, surpassed only by general “liking” of a song (Jakubowski & Ghosh, 2021).…”