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| Looking Back to Counteract Loneliness with Nostalgia |
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| Medicine - Soc & Psych | |||
| TS-Si News Service | |||
| Monday, 17 November 2008 13:00 | |||
 Guangzhou, China. With the days getting shorter (and colder) and the Holidays quickly approaching, many of us start thinking back to days gone by. This sentimentality and desire for the past is known as nostalgia. All of us are struck with nostalgic feelings from time to time but a new study in Psychological Science indicates that nostalgia may serve a greater purpose than just taking us back to the good old days.
Psychologists Xinyue Zhou and Ding-Guo Gao from Sun Yat-Sen University, along with Constantine Sedikides and Tim Wildschut from the University of Southampton explored the connection between loneliness and nostalgia.
They ran a series of experiments that had participants answer questions related to feelings of loneliness, social support and nostalgia. The study participants included children, college students and factory workers. In addition, the factory workers were also assessed on their resilience (their ability to recover from traumatic events and adverse life situations).
… nostalgia amplifies perceptions of social support …The results showed that individuals who felt the loneliest reported receiving the least amount of social support.
What was interesting, however, was that these participants turned out to be the most nostalgic. In addition, when nostalgia was induced in a number of the study participants, they in turn perceived to have the greatest amount of social support.
These findings suggest that nostalgia amplifies perceptions of social support, and in this way, counteracts feelings of loneliness. In addition, the findings revealed that the most resilient individuals are more likely to use nostalgia to overcome feelings of loneliness.
These results have very important implications to clinical psychology and indicate that nostalgia may be used in cognitive therapy, as a coping mechanism that individuals turn to when they are confronted with social exclusion. The authors suggest that “individuals could be trained to benefit from the restorative function of nostalgia when actual social support is lacking or is perceived as lacking”.
CitationCounteracting Loneliness: On the Restorative Function of Nostalgia. Xinyue Zhou, Constantine Sedikides, Tim Wildschut, Ding-Guo Gao. Psychological Science 19(10) 1023-1029. doi: 10.1111 / j.1467-9280.2008.02194.x ISSN: 0956-7976 Download PDF
Abstract Four studies tested whether nostalgia can counteract reductions in perceived social support caused by loneliness. Loneliness reduced perceptions of social support but increased nostalgia. Nostalgia, in turn, increased perceptions of social support. Thus, loneliness affected perceived social support in two distinct ways. Whereas the direct effect of loneliness was to reduce perceived social support, the indirect effect of loneliness was to increase perceived social support via nostalgia. This restorative function of nostalgia was particularly apparent among resilient persons. Nostalgia is a psychological resource that protects and fosters mental health.  The TS-Si News Service is a collaborative effort by TS-Si.org editors, contributors, and corresponding institutions. The sources can include the cited individuals and organizations, as well as TS-Si.org staff contributions. Articles and news reports do not necessarily convey official positions of TS-Si, its partners, or affiliates. We welcome your comments. Use the form below to leave a public comment or send private correspondence via the TS-Si Contact Page. We will not divulge any personal details or place you on a mailing list without your permission.
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| Last Updated on Monday, 22 December 2008 19:05 |
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