NYT Article: What Is Nostalgia Good For? Quite a Bit, Research Shows
 

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:hug::hug::hug:

Steve, :hug: :hug: :hug:

Those songs have lots of power.

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

Mari

confounded
 

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. :p:(

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

Definitions and research
 

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, :hug: :hug: :hug:

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". ;):rolleyes:

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! :eek: 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

Hi, Waves,


Yes, the Psychology Today explanation is certainly more negative.

This caught my attention:
I have begun to believe that I am living in the past and present at the same time so that maybe there is not much "past" for me. . . . not sure.
Or worse, not living in either.

Mari

not living in past or present
 

Dear MariWow. This applies to me too - whether in the same way or not, I don't know.

Btw, I have often felt like I live in my head. On occasion, others have observed this of me also.

-------

I have a great attachment to the past and the tendency to cling to elements of it. Clearly, we cannot truly live in the past. At the same time, I feel like my present is empty... I don't feel fully alive in it.

I think this might be seen as a detrimental aspect of nostalgia: clinging so much to the past that the head-trips negatively interfere with the experience of the present. To be clear, I wouldn't say ordinary nostalgia causes me not to live in the present, in general. However, I am aware that if I allow myself to indulge in excessive nostalgia, I start living the present as a collection of absent things. :crazy: What a mess! That, I believe is how one leaves the crossroads of bittersweet, and turns down the bitter lane. Before one knows it, one is no longer nostalgic ... only bitter.

Perhaps it is just a question of too much of a good thing...

----------------

Btw, I did finally read the articles you posted in full. I found some additional points that correspond well to my experience but got sidetracked and didn't post. At this point, I will need to find the relevant excerpts again. :o:rolleyes:

I still need to look at their nostalgia scale too. I am curious as to how they evaluate it.

waves

Thank you for bringing in the literature. I find all this fascinating. After I read the articles I actually felt slightly encouraged that perhaps what happens to me could is a natural process that might be doing me some good - provided it is within reasonable measure.

That is interesting. I will have to look at the scale to give you my personal take. ;) I also don't know what I would score. I should score high. It will be interesting to see if I actually do, haha.

As I see it, one can be nostalgic about anything in the past. It doesn't have to be concrete - a person, place, thing. It can be a feeling. Indeed feelings from and about the past, are the basis of nostalgia. Concrete stimuli often elicit memories that link us to those feelings, but we may also connect to them spontaneously, without stimuli. :) Eg. When a song triggers nostalgic feelings in someone, it causes them to re-experience feelings they experienced in the past - good feelings that they kind of yearn for or miss. If the song elicited no feelings there would be no basis for nostalgia - it would be only a memory. (Also, if there were feelings without a sense of yearning, that would be reminiscence and not nostalgia.)

waves

Nostalgia Rating Scale - observations
 

Hi Mari

I just looked at the scale and I was pretty surprised. I expected to find something which attempted to gauge the extent to which a person is nostalgic, but that does not seem to be the case.

The response range of "not at all" to "very much/frequently" is an extremely subjective measure. What is "much" to one person may not be that much to another. Only the last question concretizes frequency and we have no reason to extrapolate the frequencies given to the previous questions. Even if that were possible, frequency cannot be mapped onto the questions dealing with extent (little/some/much).

I thought the scale might measure the degree to which one values nostalgia. This would work when people who value it highly seek it to a subjectively high extent thereby scoring high, while those who value it less would would not see themselves as particularly nostalgic and would score low.

This questionnaire does not, however, try to capture nostalgic experiences that might not be subjectively identified. This limits its sensitivity for any purpose, imho. We must presume those evaluated are given a standardized definition of nostalgia for the purposes of the test and perhaps a little more - that they have been counseled as to what experiences are nostalgic and which not.

I did score high on it, except for a couple of questions. But from the get-go, I was asking myself, "How much is very much?" I could just as easily have scored mid-range, adopting a different working definition of "very much/frequently".

waves