Nostalgia

The science behind the emotional time machine

Let's take a little trip back in time to the 2000s… Do you remember the time when Tamagotchis and Gameboys were our constant companions? We listened to Bravo Hits on the Walkman or later semi-legally downloaded songs on the cool new mobile phone or iPod. "Poker Face" by Lady Gaga, "Umbrella" by Rihanna, "Haus am See" by Peter Fox, "Durch den Monsun" by Tokio Hotel and in the time before he went off the rails, of course also "Dieser Weg" by Xavier Naidoo. Low rise jeans and Buffalos were in and on the telly, depending on preference and age, "SpongeBob SquarePants", "Schloss Einstein", "DSDS" or "Kim Possible" aired, and in 2006 during our summer fairy tale of course there was a lot of football.

What feelings come up when you read that? If everything has worked well, you should feel a bittersweet and at the same time warm feeling called nostalgia, which tempts you to view the 2000s through rose-tinted glasses.

By the way, the description of "warm feeling" for nostalgia has a grain of truth to it. Zhou et al found in 2012 that nostalgic test subjects felt physically warmer, so much so that they held their hand in ice-cold water 6 seconds longer than the control group.

In science, however, nostalgia is of course not only defined as a "warm feeling". It is described here as a predominantly positive, past-oriented and social feeling. It is often perceived as a longing for past times, but this seems to be only partially correct. If you look at it more closely, it is actually more of a longing for a past version of "yourself". So you would like to be the version of yourself that you were back then.

Nostalgia can be perceived individually and culturally. It is much studied in psychology, which is primarily concerned with individual effects. 

Nostalgia is also used in marketing, which is basically also part of the research field of psychology, to evoke positive feelings and associations in potential customers. Especially in cinemas, this has been easy to observe in recent years with the nth sequel, prequel, remake or spin-off of Disney classics, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, The Matrix or Harry Potter. Particularly with these cult classics, nostalgia is a major factor that draws the masses to the box office. So if you find yourself wondering soon (again) why Hollywood apparently comes up with little that's new: they probably just prefer to play it safe and release something where nostalgia draws people to the cinema or screen.

Otherwise, within psychology, nostalgia is examined with regard to its potential therapeutic effect. It seems to be triggered particularly by loneliness. This has good reason: it strengthens feelings of social connectedness, self-worth and a sense of life meaning. All these positive effects are particularly welcome and helpful in moments of loneliness. Nostalgia thus works towards regaining emotional balance. That's all for the individualistic view of nostalgia. 

As already mentioned, however, it can also be viewed culturally. The concept of collective nostalgia becomes interesting here. This is nostalgic reflection in which one simultaneously understands oneself as part of a social group. It is therefore less about longing for a personal experience or a period of one's own life. Rather, it is about looking back at past (and often outdated) social structures. This means that collective nostalgia is not just a positive, warm feeling, but a feeling with political dimension and relevance. A negative prime example of this is Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again". With this, he expressed the longing for a past time when the USA were supposedly better than nowadays. Combined with the knowledge that Trump stands for a policy of xenophobia, one can perfectly see the danger of collective nostalgia here: a rose-tinted distortion of past times in which actually not everything was better, especially for minorities and marginalised groups.

Nostalgia thus has its advantages and disadvantages, of which one should be aware. Indulging in memories a little can have very positive effects, such as an increased sense of social connectedness and more sense of life meaning. There is initially nothing against using these positive effects for yourself, as long as you don't let yourself be carried away by a distortion of the past and history and forget what was actually worse back then.