Those Were the Days

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The psychologists ran similar experiments with college students and factory workers, using a variety of experimental methods. In some studies they actually induced feelings of loneliness or nostalgic thoughts in order to double-check the paradoxical findings. The results were basically the same in all the studies. It appears that, regardless of age or circumstances, the lonely mind has the ability to protect itself from emotional pain by recruiting romanticized memories of the past.

But how? Why do some individuals summon up nostalgic memories to buffer their loneliness, while others do not? Zhou thinks it may have to do with basic personality. Psychologists have known for some time that people differ on a trait called resilience. Resilience is basically the ability to shake off life's insults, to roll with the punches; it's emotional hardiness. The psychologists suspected that people with resilient personalities would be more likely to use nostalgia as a coping strategy. And that's just what they found. When they gave the factory workers a personality inventory on top of the other tests, they found that the most resilient individuals were also most likely to use nostalgic memories for self-protection.

These findings, reported in the October issue of the journal Psychological Science, have clear clinical implications. Loneliness, at its pathological extreme, is nothing less than existential dread—terror at being disconnected in the universe. Such fear can lead to disabling anxiety and depression. If nostalgia is an antidote to such fear, Zhou argues, perhaps patients might be taught to recruit sentimental memories as a therapeutic tool for creating a healthful sense of human connection.

How all this unfolds in the brain is still unclear, but one idea is that nostalgia increases the accessibility of certain restorative experiences—moments of human connection. The brain may do this by calling up actual visual images, in effect flipping through an internal photo album and reminiscing. Not all that different than strolling through a Norman Rockwell retrospective.

Wray Herbert writes the We're Only Human blog at www.psychologicalscience.org/onlyhuman

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Posted By: Boug @ 12/09/2008 6:37:34 PM

I gotcompletely turned around and ended years and years of "sad and blue Christamases" and found,too, if I keep rehashing and bringingup old memories od sadness and disappointments: A Methodist Miniser in a Church I sometimes attended,right across thestree fromme in Westfield. Nj, held a special "Blue Christmas Service" for allof us sad peopel whowantedtoattend , at Christmas time!1 and He geve me a piece of information-reason for rehashing and being sad every Christmas- I was about 75 yrs of age thatyear- We have a hidden agenda that somehow it's all goingto change and be better!" Wow! Kicked the props out fromunder me as I knew inall my reasoning that he changeof the past was impossible! So STOP Revisiting IT! Clyde D Beaty SSGTUSMCRET DURHAM<NC
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Posted By: star3 @ 10/22/2008 5:06:56 PM

My husband and I visited the Norman Rockwell Museum several years ago, and enjoyed it very much. I, also subscribe to a magazine called "Good Old Days". We once visited The Amish country area in Penn., which was an amazing experience. The New England states, in the country areas, especially in the fall, is about as close as one gets to being able to relive a little of what life must have been like many years ago. I like lighthouses--probably from living around the ocean for so many years. If you want a taste of what times were like in the beginning of our country, visit Colonial Williamsburg, Va. Many of the old original homes from those days are still there, and very well maintained. There are many place one can visit to get a real feeling of the past.
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Posted By: star3 @ 10/22/2008 4:45:09 PM

Thank you for this article; it expresses the feelings so well of many people who enjoy re-visiting a time when things seemed simpler. We tend to forget that every era has had its problems, and we remember our childhood, or perhaps envision a time even before we were born thats appeals to our sense of longing for peace and calm and a time without so much fear of the unknown. I'm, basically, a realist, so I know we can't really "go home again", so this is a way we can, at least, re-visit an era from the past in an effort to re-assure ourselves that it is possible to live in a less stressful world. I have to admit that I like all my modern conviences---my cell phone and computer being my favorites, along with my car with its air conditioning and stereo, but it is nice to day dream about a time when.......