Hi,

I found this useful.

Research shows that nostalgia is beneficial:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/09/sc...me&ref=general

Here is the Southhampton Nostalgia Scale
http://www.southampton.ac.uk/nostalgia/materials/


Mari

This is a good example of that. When we hear our old favorite songs that we listened to when we where teenagers,I have fond memories. That's nostalgia in a time capsule for me.

When my parents where alive,and they listened to their old favorite songs,their songs did not do a thing for me. They where nice songs,but there where no memories attached to them. BF

Steve,

Those songs have lots of power.

http://www.southampton.ac.uk/nostalg..._is_nostalgia/

Mari

I am bewildered by the NYT article. I was left to think the researchers speak a different version of English than any I have been exposed to. I grew up with both American and British English, which makes for a rather broad base. However since the two variants can occasionally be at odds, I looked up nostalgia in both American and British English dictionaries.

Both Merriam-Webster's (American) and the Oxford (British) definitions include "yearning" in the definition of affection. The Oxford alternatively allows for "wistful affection" - where wistful involves yearning or regret.

American English definition, per Merriam-Webster's online:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nostalgia

British/World English definition, per the Oxford Dictionaries Online:
http://oxforddictionaries.com/defini...lish/nostalgia

Basking in pleasant memories or hearing something that evokes good memories is not the same as nostalgia. Nostalgia involves a feeling of yearning (or, in British English, regret).

It is true that the good can outweigh the bad. The sense of regret or yearning may be small compared to the pleasantness of the memories. In this case, I can see that there might be psychological benefit. However, the good-bad balance is not part of the definition.

As I see it then, nostalgia is going to have a different effect on a person, depending on the degree of yearning/regret present as well as other factors, such as whether or not one is happy in the present.

Nostalgia can feel painful when the yearning component is very strong. It can even be overwhelming. In these cases, I truly fail to see how it can confer psychological benefit.

Maybe I am just not getting it.

waves

In reference to the excerpts quoted from
Certainly, I can attest to the concept that my feelings of nostalgia do provide a sense of "belongingness, affiliation, [and] sociality". It is one that I lack in the present, so perhaps clinging to the past is the only way I can get this sense.

However, I do often find that when I am sad, thinking about unreachable and happy aspects of my past does not improve my mood. To the contrary, I have to steer clear of indulging in memories at those times because I find that nostalgia will aggravate depression and even ordinary sadness. That is the part I don't follow, in terms of "psychological benefit."

I wonder if the depth of my nostalgia - even if it feels bad sometimes - might be a psychological response to the, ehh, "vicissitudes" I have encountered.

(There was no an attempt at sarcasm, lest it read that way. I am trying to wrap my brain around this. Or even my gut, since nostalgia is pretty visceral stuff.)

Waves,

I am coming back to this later. . . . on my way to bed.

I do agree that they seem to be working with a different definition of nostalgia.

Here they point out that it is usually negative and used to be considered a disorder. But then they move to show it as positive.

See the bottom of page 975 and top of page 976 of the research. They use the New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) to show nostalgia as " a sentimental longing for the past."
They mention the different understandings of nostalgia with Davis (1979) defining nostalgia as a "positively toned evocation of a lived past."
http://www.wildschut.me/Tim_Wildschu...gia%20JPSP.pdf

In this article linked to by the NYT, nostalgia is defined thus:
http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=...2012-15305-001

And people are likely to be triggered by cold:
The part about cold is interesting and makes sense to me.

M

Waves,

Often journalists get things wrong in the presentation. They are referring to studies. If the researchers themselves were talking directly to us, this might make sense.

I do agree that those of us who have encountered the "vicissitudes" the article mentions do feel more than others. . . .. more intensely . ... . and maybe we experience feelings differently as well too . . .


I did not bring this us to disturb anyone. I am sorry for doing that.

Mari

Regarding definitions:

Ok, so here we have the term "longing" - this remains consistent with both the Oxford Dictionaries online definition and the Webster's 2nd definition.
This is indeed different, because, contrary to both dictionary definitions, it does not involve longing or wistfulness (regret/yearning).
I will look at the articles more close up. I have to confess I was replying based on your quoted excerpts and have not read the entire articles linked, as yet.

Ok, I do not read the entire cited quotation as a definition. I read only the bolded clause as the definition and it corresponds closely to the Oxford definition. I read the underlined predicate as presenting the author's thesis as to the role of nostalgia. The rest of the paragraph introduces the thesis in greater detail, stating how the author intends to substatiate it.

Yes, I can't offer any logical observations here, but it sits well with me too, somehow. It just feels right, even though I couldn't say why.

waves

This is a good point.

Yes, I wonder if the presence of a mood disorder could skew the effect of nostalgia on a single individual. Personality and other individual factors probably play a role too. The studies are based on statistics. And we all know that with stats, there is someone who is off the curve. I might be one of those "someones".

It's ok and, FWIW, I don't feel disturbed. I was just really confused. Mostly, it didn't make sense to me because their working definition seemed off. The claims were also pretty inconsistent with my experience. I have to be very, very careful how much nostalgia I allow myself to feel. There's a delicate balance between savoring and grieving. In my experience, nostalgia is only good as long as the savoring predominates. When the balance favors grieving it becomes destructive and dangerous.

The following article captures the more negative nostalgic experience well, IMHO:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/colle...esence-absence

This description of nostalgia contains what I see as all the essential components. (The sentences are organized so as to launch into the negative aspects, granted.)
The word bittersweet characterizes the dual nature of nostalgia well, imho.

My own experience is less negative than what is presented in the article. Nostalgia does not remind me, personally, of my mortality! I also do not equate nostalgia with pining, any more than I equate it with homesickness. I see both as being forms of nostalgia. I get a strongly negative connotation from pining, which I view as a predominantly negative kind of nostalgia - one best avoided for the sake of sanity.

waves

Hi, Waves,

Thanks for helping me think through this.
On the nostalgia scale I linked to in the first post I mostly got 2's (with 1 being "not at all" and 7 being "very much") so I have become aware that maybe I am out side the the norm.
But as you say these scores of ours perhaps would get thrown out due to bipolar. --- I did this a few days ago when mood was mostly o.k.

=======

Tonight depression feels strong and that messes with memory retrieval -- for the good or the bad. . . . But even on non-depressed days, I do not seem to have the strong memories that my sister and the brother right behind me have. For one thing, they mention names of people that we grew up with and I can remember very little about other people, song lyrics, events that seem important to them, . .
I think I might have lived in my head.
I might have lived some how in my own cauldron /sea/ . . (choose your own image.) I was probably alone a lot playing the piano, reading, talking to my pets, taking long walks . . . then when I turned 16 doing things I "had to" like driving one or the other sibling somewhere, making dinner for the family, and working . . . . . Even though I can remember more specifics of my 20s, I think I was still living in my head then as now.
. . .. So maybe I do have nostalgia -- as long as it could be measured on a different kind of scale that asked not so much about nostalgia but rather about how I feel about my feelings I had in the past . . .. or something like that.

Thanks.

Mari