Nostalgia

by Clay Routledge

Nostalgia is a topic that most lay people are familiar with, but, until recently, few social scientists understood. Once viewed as a disease, nostalgia is now considered to be an important psychological resource. It involves revisiting personally cherished memories that involve close others. When people engage in nostalgia, they experience a boost in positive psychological states such as positive mood, feelings of social connectedness, self-esteem, self-continuity, and perceptions of meaning in life. Since nostalgia promotes these positive states, when people experience negative states (such as loneliness or meaninglessness), they use nostalgia to regulate distress. This book explains in detail what nostalgia is, how views of it have changed over time, and how it has been studied by social scientists. It explores issues like how common nostalgia is and whether people differ in their tendency to be nostalgic. It looks at the triggers and inspiration for nostalgia, and the emotional states that are associated with it. Finally, the psychological, social, and behavioral effects of engaging in nostalgia are discussed. This volume provides the most comprehensive overview to date of the social scientific research into the complex and intriguing phenomenon of nostalgia. It will be of interest to a range of students and researchers in psychology and beyond, and its accessible writing style and engaging anecdotes will also be appreciated by a wider, non-academic audience.

Genres: Psychology

158 pages, Paperback

First published October 5, 2015

Reviews

[Cav · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Nostalgia is a topic that most lay people are familiar with, but, until recently, few social scientists understood. Once viewed as a disease, nostalgia is now considered to be an important psychological resource..."

Nostalgia: A Psychological Resource was an interesting science-driven look into the topic. I've been looking for a book on nostalgia for a long time now, so I put this one on my list as soon as I came across it.

Author Clay Routledge is a leading expert in the psychology of nostalgia and experimental existential psychology. He has published over 80 scientific papers. Dr. Routledge’s work is regularly featured in the media and he writes the popular blog More Than Mortal for Psychology Today.

Clay Routledge:


Nostalgia. We've all experienced it... It is an elusive emotion, however, and its causes, origins, and experiences are still being debated. Routledge attempts to shed some light on this phenomenon in these pages. The quote above continues on:

"...It involves revisiting personally cherished memories that involve close others. When people engage in nostalgia, they experience a boost in positive psychological states such as positive mood, feelings of social connectedness, self-esteem, self-continuity, and perceptions of meaning in life. Since nostalgia promotes these positive states, when people experience negative states (such as loneliness or meaninglessness), they use nostalgia to regulate distress."

Routledge lays out the scope of the book:

"This book explains in detail what nostalgia is, how views of it have changed over time, and how it has been studied by social scientists. It explores issues like how common nostalgia is and whether people differ in their tendency to be nostalgic. It looks at the triggers and inspiration for nostalgia, and the emotional that are associated with it. Finally, the psychological, social, and behavioral effects of engaging in nostalgia are discussed.
This volume provides the most comprehensive overview to date of the social scientific research into the complex and intriguing phenomenon of nostalgia. It will be of interest to a range of students and researchers in psychology and beyond, and its accessible writing style and engaging anecdotes will also be appreciated by a wider, non-academic audience."

So why do people experience nostalgia?? The author says:

"...The basic idea was that when people think about their future demise they may gain some comfort from reflecting on the past. That is, perhaps people can counter the existential threats associated with the future by revisiting a meaningful past. By nostalgically reflecting on personally treasured past life experiences, people can reassure themselves that they have lived meaningful lives."

Interestingly, and as touched on above, nostalgia went from being considered a mental illness of sorts, to becoming leveraged by marketing campaigns:

"In the late 1980s, nostalgia became a topic of empirical interest in the field of marketing. Researchers in this area discovered that throughout life people feel attached to or display preferences for the products they consumed in their late teens and early twenties. For instance, people display an enduring preference for movie stars that were popular (Holbrook & Schindler, 1994) and films that they watched (Holbrook & Schindler, 1996) in their youth. Similarly, people like music that was popular in their teens and early twenties more than they like music that was popular before their teenage years or after their early twenties (Holbrook & Schindler, 1989). And males, but not females, exhibit a similar pattern of attachment to automobile models from their youth (Schindler & Holbrook, 2003). Studies such as these, which I discuss in more detail in Chapter 3, began to shed light on the potential power of nostalgia.
When it comes to aesthetic preferences and media consumption, nostalgia may influence consumer choice. Not surprisingly then, companies frequently employ nostalgia when marketing products (Havlena & Holak, 1991) and many films and television programs are created with the intent of capitalizing on nostalgia for past decades..."

Some more of what is covered here by Routledge includes:
• The origins of Nostalgia as a Medical Disease
• Nostalgia and the Rise of Psychology
• Nostalgia in the age of Marketing
• How do People conceptualize Nostalgia?
• How do People Experience Nostalgia?
• How common is Nostalgia?
• From the Past to the Present: A History of Nostalgia
• How We Perceive and Experience Nostalgia
• What Makes People Nostalgic?
• The Affective Consequences of Nostalgia
• The Social Functions of Nostalgia
• The Self-Related Functions of Nostalgia
• The Existential Functions of Nostalgia
• Individual Differences and Nostalgia
• The Future of the Past: Emerging Research on Nostalgia


***********************

I enjoyed this book, although some of the writing here was a bit dry, especially near the end, where the author seems to drone on; rattling off the minutia of many different studies.
I also found the practice of including the citations in the writing here instead of in the form of footnotes to be distracting and annoying. A small gripe, but I felt that this formatting took away from the overall presentation.
I would still recommend it to anyone interested in the topic of nostalgia.
3 stars.

[Mihrdāt · Rating 4 out of 5]

یک هیجان: از بیماری تا سرمایه‌ای روان‌شناختی

انسان‌ها –خواسته یا ناخواسته– در لحظه‌های سخت زندگی، وقتی از یک یار شفیق برای همیشه جدا یا دچار بی‌معنایی در زندگی می‌شوند، ممکن است به خاطرات خوش گذشته‌شان روی بیاورند. احساسی تلخ‌و‌شیرین که یادآور روزهایی درخشان اما غیرقابل‌تکرار است.

این احساس در روانشناسی با نام نوستالژی شناخته می‌شود و تاریخچه‌ی جذابی هم دارد:
از نامی که پزشکی سوییسی در اواخر قرن هفدهم در پایان‌نامه‌اش روی آن گذاشت،
nostos
به معنای میل به برگشتن به سرزمین مادری و
algos
به معنای درد. آن هم برای نوعی بیماری که سربازان سوییسی در جبهه‌های دور اروپا با علائم بدنی ناخوشایندی به آن دچار شده بودند. تا روانکاوان که آن را اختلالی روانی مشابه افسردگی و دارای میل برای برگشتن به مادر پیش‌ادیپی وقتی مسئله‌ی تفرد و جدایی حل‌نشده باقی می‌ماند، می‌دانستند. آن هم نه فقط معطوف به مفهوم خانه و وطن، بلکه مربوط به اشیا و افراد مختلف و گوناگون. اما مقالات و پژوهش‌های متمرکزی که در این کتاب آمده است نوستالژی را پدیده‌ی کاملاً متفاوتی معرفی می‌کند. روانشناسی امروز نوستالژی را پدیده‌ای کاملاً کاربردی در زندگی روزمره می‌داند.

نوستالژی صرفاً غصه‌خوردن برای گذشته نیست بلکه فرآیندی‌ست برای اینکه ما انسان‌ها با سفر در زمان (موهبتی که تا الان می‌دانیم منحصر به انسان است) به یاد می‌آوریم که کسانی را داریم که به ما عشق ورزیده‌اند و ماهم به آن‌ها عشق ورزیده‌ایم، همین می‌تواند به ما اعتماد به نفس شروع ارتباطات تازه را بدهد. به یاد می‌آوریم که در زندگی کارهای ارزشمندی کرده‌ایم و این به مسیری که تا اینجا پیموده‌ایم معنا می‌بخشد. علم به ما نشان می‌دهد که در تکمیل حرف سورن کیرکگارد که زمانی گفت:
«زندگی در نگاه به عقب معنا می‌یابد، اما باید رو به جلو پیش برود.»
می‌توان از نوستالژی و نگاه به گذشته برای رسم تصویری روشن‌تر از آینده بهره گرفت.
همچنین نوستالژی می‌تواند به ما حسی از اصالت را ببخشد. برای زمان‌هایی که خود را تنها و گرفتار در پوچی می‌بینیم، با تصاویر، بوها و صداها می‌تواند به ما یادآوری کند هویتی یکپارچه‌ و «من»ای ثابت داشته‌ایم، به جایی تعلق داریم و موجود بیهوده‌ای نبوده‌ایم.

خوب است که از این هدیه‌ی طبیعی لذت ببریم!

پ.ن: آدم متحیر می‌شود که در کشوری این حجم از سرمایه برای پژوهش حول چنین موضوع ساده‌ای و علم پشت آن خرج می‌شود. واقعاً برای ما که گرفتار چرخه‌های ناکارآمد سیستم دانشگاهی ایران هستیم جالب است :)

[Andrew · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dr. Routlege's book helpfully provides a historical overview of the phenomenon which we call "nostalgia" (interestingly, it was once considered a medical ailment rather than a state of mind in which we can choose to indulge) and presents some compelling contemporary research regarding this often intractable feeling. The beginning of the book, in which Routledge meticulously lays out a series of seven studies that allowed psychologists to determine what, exactly, people mean when they think of nostalgia, is a great help to anyone who has struggled to identify or define nostalgia.

However, in the later chapters, Routledge's observations become increasingly speculative, and in some cases, he makes grand generalizations with only a small amount of research. For example, Routledge suggests that nostalgia can reduce prejudice because of a single study in which the subjects tended to report more positive views of overweight people after reminiscing about a positive past experience with an overweight person. Apart from the fact that prejudices regarding something more complex like racial differences has yet to be tested, it seems to be questionable that someone will actually act with less prejudice toward someone simply because they say they will in a study. This is not to say that all psychological studies should immediately be doubted, but I think that some of Routlege's assertions ought to be taken with a sizable grain of salt.

As previously stated, Routledge's "Nostalgia" is helpful at the beginning, when he lays out very specific, detailed, and interrelated studies with clear methodologies that credibly define the phenomenon of nostalgia. It is in the later chapters that the book drifts from the shore of certainty and finds itself in the sea of speculation.

[Mills College Library]

155.9 R8696 2016