Do you often find yourself looking back on your school years? Or losing track of time flipping through an old photo album? People are naturally drawn to reminiscing — but does that really mean we're getting old? In fact, there's a long-running custom overseas called Throwback Thursday (TBT) or Flashback Friday (FBF), where people post an old photo on social media (Instagram, Twitter) or their blog on a Thursday or Friday, using social media to encourage everyone to share memories from the past. So what exactly is it about nostalgia that has us all so hooked?
What is nostalgia?
Nostalgia began as a medical term, coined by the Swiss physician Johannes Hofer (1688). He explained that the word is made up of two parts — "return" (Nostos) and "pain" (Algos) — and used it to describe the low mood that soldiers of the era developed out of homesickness (Batcho, 2013). Later, Hirsch (1992) pointed out from the perspective of psychoanalysis that nostalgia is a longing to return to the past, and that people tend, almost involuntarily, to idealise these memories. Researchers call this phenomenon a screen memory; it usually stems from childhood recollections, and as we look back, we automatically filter out the negative emotions they once held. It is a "blend" that mixes different memories and feelings together, like a distorted version of a real memory. That is why psychologists often describe nostalgia as a bittersweet experience.
Why do we always cling to memories of the past?
Nostalgia may have become part of our everyday lives, but did you know it also tends to surface at particular moments? Routledge and Clay (2015) noted that we are most likely to look back on the past when we feel down, unhappy, or as though life has lost its meaning. Put simply, one of the emotions that triggers nostalgia is distress. Researchers point out that when people experience negative emotions, we are more inclined to draw on our autobiographical memory — that is, to recall important events or significant experiences from our past (Wildschut et al., 2006), so nostalgia may be one way people respond when facing distress. What's more, we often assume that only older people feel nostalgic, but in fact the researcher Batcho found that it is younger adults who are the most fond of reminiscing! Because they are going through a transitional stage of life, the uncertainty of the future actually leaves them yearning for the life they once knew (American Psychological Association, 2019). So nostalgia is no sign of growing old at all!
Beyond our own negative emotions, have you noticed that when you get together with friends or family, it tends to be especially easy to start talking about old times? This is precisely another trigger that Routledge identified — social interaction. When we take part in social activities, our friends, our family, or even the place we're gathering all become retrieval cues that bring back memories of times gone by without our even realising it. On top of that, at these gatherings most of us hope to create common ground in order to maintain our relationships, and this kind of bonding experience makes nostalgia all the more contagious, making it easier for people to recall the shining moments they once shared. It's just like when you attend a secondary-school reunion: you always end up bringing up everyone's "dark history", the class activities from those years, and your graduation ceremony. Because by recalling these fragments, you get to share the same emotions and experiences, drawing closer to one another.
The good and the bad of nostalgia
On one hand, nostalgia brings us a sense of meaning in life, helping us fend off loneliness and boost our self-esteem even as we look back on the past (Routledge et al., 2011; Wildschut, 2006); yet research has also shown that when nostalgia becomes a constant feature of our lives, it can in fact make us more negative and affect our mental health (Newman et al., 2020). So is nostalgia ultimately a good thing or a bad thing?
The scholar Svetlana Boym suggested that nostalgia's effect on us may depend on how we view the past, and so she proposed two types of nostalgia: restorative nostalgia and reflective nostalgia (Horvath, 2018). "Restorative nostalgia" emphasises the "return" part Hofer described — that is, people long to relive the "past" and hope to use nostalgia to rebuild bygone times in order to fill the gaps in their memory. For example, if after a breakup we still often dwell on the romance of the past and keep trying to win back our former partner, hoping to relive those days of love, this is the less realistic form of nostalgia, and it is more likely to bring negative consequences. By contrast, "reflective nostalgia" emphasises the "pain" part instead, but this simply represents people placing value on their emotional longing, hoping to look back on those imperfect memories with a reflective attitude. When we lean towards this kind of nostalgia, we are in fact aware of the fact that time cannot be reversed, so we are able to look back on the past from an aesthetic perspective. It's just like the way you might use an object or a photo to savour the times you once had, seeking out the happiness of that one moment — and this is the more positive nostalgic attitude. So whether it turns out good or bad is in your hands too!
All in all, no matter our age, we can't help but recall the little moments of days gone by. As long as we don't dwell too deeply in the past, a measured dose of nostalgia is a wonderful way to help you find meaning in life and stay socially connected!
References
American Psychological Association. (2019, November.). Speaking of Psychology: Does nostalgia have a psychological purpose? https://www.apa.org/research/action/speaking-of-psychology/nostalgia.
Batcho, K. I. (2013). Nostalgia: The Bittersweet History of a Psychological Concept. History of Psychology.
Horvath, G. (2018). Faces of nostalgia. Restorative and reflective nostalgia in the fine arts. Jednak Książki. Gdańskie Czasopismo Humanistyczne, (9), 145-156.
Hirsch, A. R. (1992). Nostalgia: A neuropsychiatric understanding. ACR North American Advances.
Newman, D.B., Sachs, M.E., Stone, A.A., & Schwarz, N. (2020). Nostalgia and well-being in daily life: An ecological validity perspective. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 118(2), 325-347.
Routledge C., Arndt, J., Wildschut, T., Sedikides, C., Hart, C., Juhl, J., Vingerhoets, A. J., & Scholtz, W. (2011). The past makes the present meaningful: Nostalgia as an existential resource. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101, 638-652
Routledge, C. (2015). Nostalgia : A Psychological Resource, Taylor & Francis Group. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/hkuhk/detail.action?docID=4015981.
Wildschut, T., Sedikides, C., Arndt, J., & Routledge, C. (2006). Nostalgia: content, triggers, functions. Journal of personality and social psychology, 91(5), 975.
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