Bittersweet Recollection: An Ecological Study of Nostalgia

Nostalgia has recently grown as a popular subject of study. Much of the research on it, however, has not been conducted in a naturalistic way. The current experiments use a diary study to analyze aspects of nostalgia in a natural setting, including its emotional timeline and selfrelevance. Results found that nostalgia can behave like an involuntary memory and indeed has an emotional curve. Results support previous research showing that nostalgia is most often positive and most often involves missing others. Some results also suggest that nostalgia may be relevant to one’s self-identity. Success of this diary study model illustrates that similar tasks can be used to study many more aspects of nostalgic experiences. BITTERSWEET RECOLLECTION 3 Bittersweet Recollection: An Ecological Study of Nostalgic Memories “No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory – this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me it was me. ... Whence did it come? What did it mean? How could I seize and apprehend it? ... And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before mass), when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom, my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane. The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it. And all from my cup of tea.” — Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time The Proust quote above is a prime example of a nostalgic experience. Nostalgia, which is defined as a sentimental longing for the past, is a phenomenon that has recently begun to be studied in depth (Baldwin & Landau, 2013; Verplanken, 2012; Wildschut, Sedikides, Routledge, & Arndt, 2006). The definition of nostalgia contains an affective component and a memory based sentimental longing of the past, but memory researchers have not been included in this resurgence of research interest in nostalgia. Much of the recent research on nostalgia has focused on the social components of nostalgia, such as nostalgic reverie being influenced by attachmentrelated avoidance, nostalgia inducing greater feelings of belongingness, and nostalgia decreasing feelings of loneliness (Abeyta et al., 2015; Cox et al., 2015, Wildschut et al., 2006; Zhou, Sedikides, Wildschut, & Gao, 2008). The missing memory component of nostalgia is also highlighted in the common method for measuring nostalgia that requires participants to think of things that make them feel nostalgic (Abeyta et al., 2015; Cox et al., 2015; Wildschut et al., BITTERSWEET RECOLLECTION 4 2006). The goal of the current research is to focus on the role of memory in nostalgia and how memory and emotions are related in the nostalgic experience. Homesickness and nostalgia were once considered to be the same experience, although recently these two experiences are discussed as separate constructs (Wildschut et al. 2006). The concept of nostalgia, at least while it was still associated with homesickness, was considered a form of psychological illness associated with increased anxiety and difficulty sleeping, amongst other symptoms (Baldwin & Landau, 2013; Sedikides et al., 2008; Stephan, Sedikides, & Wildschut, 2012; Wildschut et al, 2006). Recent research, however, has shown strong positive effects of nostalgia on affect and social connectedness. Baldwin and Landau (2013) found that engaging in nostalgic thoughts can result in improved positive affect and stronger feelings of belongingness. Cox et al. (2015) used the internet to induce nostalgia in their participants by having them read lines from a love website or view images of people at a location accompanied by a longing quote, and they found an increased positive affect as well as higher reports of relationship need satisfaction resulted from this manipulation. These findings are congruent with research by Wildschut and colleagues who found significant increases in positive affect following a purposefully recalled nostalgic event as well as higher scores on measures of social bonds (Wildschut et al., 2006). They suggested that experiences of nostalgia were precipitated by feelings of loneliness but increased feelings of perception of social support (Wildschut et al., 2006). The recent research findings suggests that nostalgia may act as a protective measure against negative affect and feelings of loneliness (Cox et al., 2015; Wildschut et al., 2006; Zhou et al., 2008). Although this research highlights that nostalgia can have an important social component, other research suggests that some of the most nostalgic aspects of our life include stimuli (e.g. music and toys) that are not inherently social (Batcho, 2005). BITTERSWEET RECOLLECTION 5 Consequently, nostalgia is considered by many researchers to be a positive, self-relevant emotion (Abeyta et al., 2015, Cox et al., 2015; Sedikides et al., 2008; Wildschut et al., 2006). However, other researchers suggest that nostalgia is a type of memory that is affectively charged with both positive and negative emotionality (Verplanken, 2012). Although some researchers believe nostalgia to be a type of emotion and others believe it to be a type of memory, nostalgia may be an experience which requires both memory and emotion components. Researchers studying the emotional content of nostalgia have found that the experience consists of more positive emotion than negative emotion (Cox et al., 2015; Abeyta et al., 2015), however these studies did not analyze the individual’s affective change. Verplanken (2012) measured positive and negative state before and after the nostalgic experience, however, he did not include the same measure during the experience for nostalgia. His manipulation required willful conscious engagement in the creation of nostalgia, and this is problematic because nostalgia is likely not experienced purposefully in natural settings. Verplanken also found that habitual worriers experienced greater feelings of anxiety and depression even after a nostalgic experience briefly increased positive affect (Verplanken, 2012). This result suggests that nostalgia’s negative component can overpower the positive component in some circumstances. Verplanken asserted that his findings may have been due to a discrepancy in the mood associated with the individual’s habitual worry state (Verplanken, 2012). One possibility is that nostalgia functions as a self-reference system by means of emotional autobiographical recollections. My thesis will be the first to examine the emotional timeline experienced during nostalgia, and also, in a naturalistic setting. The effect of nostalgia on the sense of self-identity has been neglected in past research, because much of the prior nostalgia research has focused on the social aspects of nostalgia. BITTERSWEET RECOLLECTION 6 Substantial research on nostalgia has considered the effects of nostalgia on health, emotion, and social bonds (Abeyta et al., 2015; Cox et al., 2015; Wildschut et al., 2006; Zhou, Sedikides, Wildschut, & Gao, 2008). However, Baldwin and Landau (2013) found evidence that experiencing nostalgia leads to higher reporting of growth-oriented self-perception, positive selfregard, and associated to meaning in life. Memory research suggests that our current emotional state can influence how and what we recall from memory (e.g. Wilson & Ross, 2003). Likewise, circumstances at the start of the nostalgic experience can affect the end state following a nostalgic experience (Verplanken, 2012; Wildschut et al., 2006). Even though Wildschut sees nostalgia primarily as an emotion, he proposes in his research that nostalgia can function as protection and enhancement of self-regard by affirming valued aspects of the self (Wildschut et al., 2006). This position is reminiscent of memories roles in life scripts and personal narratives. Life scripts are the general timeline series of events in a person’s expected life trajectory and are heavily influenced by an individual’s culture, while life narratives are recreations in the mind of a person’s life as actually lived (Rubin & Berntsen, 2003). Wildschut seems to be suggesting that nostalgia sometimes works as a reference system between our past and current selves much like we use the autobiographical memories of our life narratives in relation to our cultures life script to inform us of where we are currently in life (Rubin & Berntsen, 2003). Memories are thought to be one of the most important aspects of what makes the self, and research has shown that many individuals who lose large portions of their memories also lose their sense of self (Prebble, Rose, Addis, & Tippett, 2013; Wilson & Ross, 2003). Nostalgic experiences could therefore play a significant role in the development and maintenance of one’s self-concept. Participants in the current study will be required to rate the memories are that are recalled during nostalgic experiences on how important they are to their personal identity. BITTERSWEET RECOLLECTION 7 According to previous research, nostalgia occurs, for most people, multiple times in a week (Cox et al., 2015; Sedikides et al., 2008; Wildschut et al., 2006). Many of the studies analyzing nostalgia have utilized an in-lab willful elicitation of a nostalgic experience (Abeyta et al., 2015; Cox et al., 2015; Wildschut et al., 2006; Verplanken et al., 2012). However, past research has not attempted to capture nostalgic experiences in a natural setting. Given the random and sporadic nature of the experiences it is difficult to study this unpredictable phenomenon, and this would explain this scarcity of ecologically valid research. The present research utilizes a diary method pioneered by Berntsen in her examination of similar unpredictable memory phenomenon, that of involuntary memories (Berntsen, 1996; 1998). Involuntary memories also come to awareness without any premeditated, conscious attempt to retrieve them. The first study is a test of this methodology to record nostalgic experiences in real time in naturalistic settings.