Disney movies, pictures of old friends, a childhood teddy bear, children’s books, 90s pop hits. Whether these specific items stroke a note in your heart or not, we have all experienced nostalgia invoked by something at some point in our lives. “A sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations” as defined by the dictionary.
(Photo Found: here)
According to David S. Werman, nostalgia derives from homesickness and is related to fantasy. Nostalgia is caused by the human need to repress certain direct memories. Nostalgia functions in both screen affect and screen memory.
But is nostalgia good or bad for us? Vess, Arndt, Routledge, Sedikides, and Wildschut tested this exact question. In their first experiment, nostalgia was promoted and then, they assessed the accessibility of positive self-attributes. Heightened accessibility of positive self-attributes was more present in the subjects who thought of a nostalgic experience rather than the subjects who were told to think of a positive future experience. In the second experiment, the subjects of the experiment received negative or positive performance feedback. Then, they were supposed to think about nostalgic or ordinary past experience. Those who were not involved with nostalgia displayed a typical pattern of self-serving attribution, but those who were involved with nostalgia did not display these same attributions. This proved nostalgia functions as a positive resource for the self.
This experiment might be flawed, however. Self-attribution is anecdotal and we know that anecdotes are not the most reliable.
Watch this video about nostalgia:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odiSsYhZ03Q
The most important message to note from this video is that nostalgia can be both good and bad for you. It is good if you think about it in moderation and you are just reflecting on the past, but not yearning for it. Also, note that the hippocampus (the memory house of the brain) can only store so much. Therefore, it is important that the many memories of the past do not override the experiences occurring now.
So what does this mean?
- Nostalgia is “a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.”
- Nostalgia derives from homesickness and is related to fantasy.
- Nostalgia functions as a positive resource for the self.
- Nostalgia is good if you think about it in moderation and you are just reflecting on the past, but not yearning for it.
So feel free to think back on fond past experiences, but don’t live by them.
I agree with the video that nostalgia is good and bad for a person. Being sad isn’t something that most people want to go through, but that is what develops us a person. Just as we have been hearing since the moment we starting taking responsibility for our actions, “you learn from your mistakes,” I think that we learn from our emotions and events and memories that we have to go through. Going through bad things and remembering those bad things is what helps us develop as a person. So thinking back and looking back at past experiences are good for someone and allows someone come to terms with something. I like the fact that you stated that it is good to look back to the past and reflect upon it as long as you are not yearning for it, which is the reason that nostalgia is bad. People need to learn that the past has happened and that we all need to move on and we won’t be able to move on if we aren’t over the past or wasn’t to fix. I look back at my past all the time and I always think wow I can’t believe I did that or wow I was stupid then and that is the problem. I need to come to terms with my past and then move on so that I can prevent me being stupid in that situation again.