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PERSONALITY PROCESSES AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES
Nostalgia and Well-Being in Daily Life: An Ecological
Validity Perspective
David B. Newman, Matthew E. Sachs, Arthur A. Stone, and Norbert Schwarz
University of Southern California
Nostalgia is a mixed emotion. Recent empirical research, however, has highlighted positive effects of
nostalgia, suggesting it is a predominantly positive emotion. When measured as an individual difference,
nostalgia-prone individuals report greater meaning in life and approach temperament. When manipulated
in an experimental paradigm, nostalgia increases meaning in life, self-esteem, optimism, and positive
affect. These positive effects may result from the specific experimental procedures used and little is
known about daily experiences that covary with nostalgia. To address this gap, we aimed to measure
nostalgia in ecologically valid contexts. We created and validated the Personal Inventory of Nostalgic
Experiences (PINE) scale (Studies 1a–1d) to assess both trait and state-based nostalgic experiences.
When measured as an individual difference, the nomological net was generally negative (Study 2). When
measured in daily life (Studies 3 and 4), nostalgia as a state variable was negatively related to well-being.
Lagged analyses showed that state nostalgia had mixed effects on well-being at a later moment that day
and negative effects on well-being on the following day. To reconcile the discrepancies between these
studies and the positive effects of nostalgia from previous research, we showed that experimentally
induced nostalgic recollections were rated more positively and less negatively than daily experiences of
nostalgia (Study 5). These studies show that nostalgia is a mixed emotion; although it may be
predominantly positive when nostalgic memories are generated on request, it seems predominantly
negative when nostalgia is experienced in the course of everyday life.
Keywords: nostalgia, well-being, ecological validity, ecological momentary assessment, diary study
Supplemental materials: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000236.supp
Nostalgia is often classified as a mixed emotion because it is
composed of positive and negative aspects. The Oxford English
dictionary defines nostalgia as “A sentimental longing or wistful
affection for a period in the past.” Similar to other emotions,
nostalgia presumably varies within individuals. Someone may feel
nostalgic at a particular moment in time but not the next. The
intensity of nostalgic feelings may also vary considerably from
moment to moment or from day to day. Moreover, these fluctuat-
ing states of nostalgia likely occur concurrently with a variety of
situations, contexts, and internal states. Currently very little is
known about the daily experiences that occur in real time when
people feel nostalgic. The goal of the present set of studies was to
examine the daily experiences, feelings, thoughts, and states of
well-being that accompany feelings of nostalgia.
Review of Empirical Findings on Nostalgia
Recent empirical findings from psychology suggest that nostal-
gia is associated with numerous psychological benefits. For exam-
ple, nostalgia-prone individuals (those who report higher levels of
intensity and frequency of nostalgia) report greater meaning in life
(Cheung et al., 2013;Routledge et al., 2011) and approach moti-
vation (Stephan et al., 2014), a dimension of personality that, in
contrast to avoidance motivation, is associated with positive emo-
tionality (Elliot & Thrash, 2010). In experimental settings, nostal-
gia increases meaning in life, optimism, self-esteem, social con-
nectedness, and positive affect (Cheung et al., 2013;Routledge et
This article was published Online First January 21, 2019.
David B. Newman, Department of Psychology, and USC Dornsife Mind
and Society Center, University of Southern California; Matthew E. Sachs,
Department of Psychology, University of Southern California; Arthur A.
Stone, Department of Psychology, and USC Dornsife Center for Self-
Report Science, University of Southern California; Norbert Schwarz, De-
partment of Psychology, USC Dornsife Mind and Society Center, and
Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California.
Study 5 was preregistered at aspredicted.org under the ID 9565 and can
be viewed online at https://aspredicted.org/4ic4c.pdf.
Arthur A. Stone discloses that he is a Senior Scientist with the Gallup
Organization and a consultant for Adelphi Values. This research was sup-
ported by the National Institute on Aging, Royal Center to Princeton Univer-
sity (P30AG024928), awarded to Arthur A. Stone. We thank Daphna Oyser-
man, Donna Spruijt-Metz, and Cheryl Wakslak for their helpful comments and
suggestions on an early draft of this article. We would also like to thank Ellen
Eastaugh, Tey Kian Siong, Nathaniel Siegel, and Negeen Farida for their help
with data collection and coding.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to David B.
Newman, Department of Psychology, University of Southern California,
Los Angeles, CA 90089-1061. E-mail: davidnew@usc.edu
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology:
Personality Processes and Individual Differences
© 2019 American Psychological Association 2020, Vol. 118, No. 2, 325–347
0022-3514/20/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000236
325
al., 2011;Wildschut, Sedikides, Arndt, & Routledge, 2006). In a
recent review of the literature, Sedikides and colleagues concluded
that “. . . nostalgia is considered an emotion, and a predominantly
positive one at that” (Sedikides et al., 2015,p.6).
Recent theories hold that feelings of nostalgia are associated
with positive outcomes because of two different mechanisms. One
mechanism is a regulatory, restorative, or palliative function in
which nostalgia buffers certain negative effects. When negative
events occur, they can influence an individual in a negative manner
by decreasing well-being. Negative events can also trigger feelings
of nostalgia, and these nostalgic experiences attenuate the associ-
ated negative effects. For example, the negative effects of exper-
imentally induced self-threat (Vess, Arndt, Routledge, Sedikides,
& Wildschut, 2012) and perceived meaninglessness (Routledge et
al., 2011) have been attenuated by recalling nostalgic experiences.
In correlational studies, the negative effects of loneliness have
been buffered by nostalgia (Zhou, Sedikides, Wildschut, & Gao,
2008). Presumably, recalling nostalgic experiences increases one’s
sense of social connectedness, which is assumed to restore one’s
well-being after a negative experience.
A second mechanism of nostalgia is one in which nostalgia
serves self-oriented, existential, and social functions, which sub-
sequently lead directly to positive outcomes. In terms of its self-
orienting function, participants in one study reported higher self-
esteem after listening to a nostalgic song (Cheung et al., 2013).
People also reported higher optimism about their future after
smelling scents that made them feel nostalgic (Cheung et al.,
2013). Regarding the existential function, after pondering a past
nostalgic event, people reported lower levels of searching for
meaning in life (Routledge et al., 2011). Finally, several studies
support a social function of nostalgia. For example, after partici-
pants were instructed to think about the most nostalgic experience
in their own lives, they reported lower attachment anxiety and
avoidance (Wildschut et al., 2006 Study 6), a higher degree of
social support (Zhou et al., 2008), and an increased level of trust
toward an outgroup member (Turner, Wildschut, & Sedikides,
2012). Recalling a nostalgic memory has even increased prosocial
behavior, such as helping a stranger pick up dropped pencils
(Stephan et al., 2014) and donating to charity (Zhou, Wildschut,
Sedikides, Shi, & Feng, 2012). In summary, various mechanisms
suggest that nostalgic recollections can lead to positive outcomes
(for a review, see Sedikides et al., 2015).
Ecological Validity Considerations
Although such experimental studies are informative in provid-
ing information about psychological processes involved in nostal-
gia and its outcomes, they tell us little about the emergence and
consequences of nostalgia in everyday life (Brunswik, 1956;Shiff-
man & Stone, 1998). In the absence of such information, one
cannot even determine to what extent the experimental settings
created by researchers mimic circumstances that elicit feelings of
nostalgia in natural contexts. It also remains unknown what types
of situations, feelings, and states of well-being are likely to co-
occur with nostalgia in daily life. To our knowledge, only one
study has captured nostalgia as it has occurred in daily life (Zhou,
Wildschut, Sedikides, Chen, & Vingerhoets, 2012, Study 1). In
this study, 19 Chinese participants recorded how nostalgic they felt
each evening over the course of 30 days. Participants were more
likely to feel nostalgic on cold days than on warm days. No other
situational factors or internal feelings were assessed in this study,
however. Clearly, there is a dearth of information about the daily
experiences that could covary with daily states of nostalgia.
Our aim was to bridge this gap in the literature by examining
and measuring nostalgia in daily life through the use of daily diary
(Bolger, Davis, & Rafaeli, 2003) and ecological momentary as-
sessment (EMA) techniques (Stone & Shiffman, 1994). Diary and
EMA studies are designed to capture behavior, thoughts, and
feelings as they occur in real time in daily life (Shiffman, Stone, &
Hufford, 2008). One advantage of this methodology is that recall
biases are limited; daily or momentary reports are much more
accurate in capturing affective experience than global recalls
(Stone & Mackie, 2013, pp. 29 –30; Robinson & Clore, 2002;
Schwarz, 2012). Such techniques allow the researcher to measure
“life as it is lived” (Bolger et al., 2003), suggesting that EMA
techniques can greatly enhance our understanding of nostalgia in
real-world settings.
Another advantage of daily diary and EMA techniques is that
they can capture ordinary feelings and experiences, whereas ex-
perimental manipulations often privilege unusual experiences in
the interest of strong manipulations. Indeed, the most common
experimental manipulation of nostalgia is the Event Reflection
Task, which asks participants to “. . . think of a past event that
makes you feel most nostalgic” (italics added for emphasis). Such
instructions explicitly ask for an event that is likely to differ from
one’s most common nostalgia experiences, which are not the
“most” nostalgic ones. In other studies (Iyer & Jetten, 2011, Study
3; Wildschut et al., 2006, Study 6), participants were asked to
recall a nostalgic event that had personal meaning (e.g., “please
think of a nostalgic event in your life—a nostalgic event that has
personal meaning for you”). Asking for a “meaningful” event
increases the odds that the recalled event affects well-being related
measures, which may or may not be the case for other episodes of
nostalgia. In short, commonly used experimental instructions in
nostalgia research compound the concerns usually associated with
recall-based reports (for reviews, see Schwarz, 2012;Schwarz,
Kahneman, & Xu, 2009), including the higher memorability of
extreme and personally meaningful events and the disproportion-
ate impact of peaks and ends (Fredrickson & Kahneman, 1993;
Morewedge, Gilbert, & Wilson, 2005). Moreover, negative affect
associated with past events has often been found to fade quicker
than positive affect (e.g., Ritchie et al., 2006;Walker, Vogl, &
Thompson, 1997), adding a risk of differential affect reconstruc-
tion when people report on distant episodes. People also remember
central aspects of nostalgia (e.g., fond memories, personal mean-
ing, and happiness), which tend to be relatively positive, more
easily than peripheral aspects of nostalgia (e.g., mixed feelings,
regret, loneliness, and pain/anxiety), which tend to be relatively
negative (Hepper, Ritchie, Sedikides, & Wildschut, 2012), again
enhancing the risk of biased reconstruction.
All of these concerns should be attenuated when participants
report how nostalgic they feel in real time. Concurrent or tempo-
rally close reports can provide a more representative sample of
nostalgic experiences, including experiences of lower intensity.
They also bypass the difficulties associated with selecting and
reconstructing a past experience. In addition, any negative affect
that may be associated with nostalgia is less likely to be missed in
real-time reporting. By the same token, however, real-time assess-
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326 NEWMAN, SACHS, STONE, AND SCHWARZ
ments of nostalgia are unlikely to capture rare episodes of partic-
ularly intense nostalgia, unless the sample of persons and/or time
points is very large. Hence, real-time studies may miss benefits
that are uniquely associated with peak nostalgia experiences.
Based on these considerations we hypothesized that the rela-
tionship between nostalgia and well-being captured in everyday
experiences would not be as positive as suggested by much of the
experimental work (Sedikides & Wildschut, 2018). We further
predicted that the nomological net of nostalgia would be mixed,
that is, nostalgia would relate to some positive and some negative
attributes. This pattern of findings would be consistent with com-
mon definitions of nostalgia that contain positive and negative
aspects. The Greek origin of the word nostalgia even contains
positive and negative aspects (nostos ⫽“return home,” algos ⫽
“pain”).
Measurement of Nostalgia
To test this hypothesis and evaluate the experience of nostalgia
in daily life, we needed to create a measure that could capture
nostalgia in ecologically valid settings. Some existing scales mea-
sure nostalgia in very specific settings, such as in the context of
marketing (Pascal, Sprott, & Muehling, 2002), and in response to
advertisements (Marchegiani & Phau, 2013). The Nostalgia Inven-
tory (Batcho, 1995) lists specific aspects of one’s past that one
misses, such as family, places, toys, and music. This restricts the
concept of nostalgia to aspects of one’s past that one misses and
excludes other aspects, such as the extent to which one yearns for
and desires to return to or relive a past experience or situation.
The most widely used measure of nostalgia, the Southampton
Nostalgia Scale (SNS; Barrett et al., 2010;Routledge, Arndt,
Sedikides, & Wildschut, 2008), is also not ideal for our purposes.
The most recent version of the scale contains seven items designed
to assess nostalgia proneness as an individual difference (Barrett et
al., 2010). Each item contains the word “nostalgia” which creates
a narrow construct. As McCrae (2015) noted, trait variance be-
comes confounded with specific item variance when an instrument
is dominated by almost identical questions, a technique that Cattell
(1973) once called a “bloated specific.” Additionally, one item of
the SNS asks participants to recall how often they bring to mind
nostalgic experiences with responses ranging from “At least once
a day” to “Once or twice a year.” This question assumes that
nostalgia is a dichotomous variable (e.g., one either feels nostalgic
or not) rather than a continuous variable (e.g., one can feel nos-
talgic to varying degrees). Finally, two of the SNS items ask
participants how valuable and significant nostalgic feelings are to
them, which selectively directs attention to positive aspects of
nostalgia. In summary, published scales assessing nostalgia have
either measured the construct in highly specific contexts, have asked
participants questions that rely on extensive recall, or have included
aspects that do not pertain to the experience per se.
Overview of Present Studies
As a first step, we created and validated a brief trait nostalgia
scale (Studies 1a–1d). Next, we examined the between-person
relationships between nostalgia, personality, and well-being mea-
sured as traits or individual differences to assess the nomological
net of nostalgia (Study 2). To ascertain the usefulness of this new
scale, we additionally compared the strengths of the relationships
between our new scale and other constructs with the relationships
between the SNS scale and other constructs.
Following scale construction, we conducted a daily diary study
(Study 3) to address our primary research aim of understanding
how nostalgia relates to other daily experiences, feelings, and
thoughts in a naturalistic setting. The intensive repeated measures
nature of a diary study also allowed us to examine within-person
relationships, a level of analysis that is statistically orthogonal to
between-person relationships (Nezlek, 2001). Separating within-
person and between-person variance in nostalgia considerably
extends the research agenda, given that theories concerning the
relationship between nostalgia and well-being have been tested
almost exclusively with between-person designs. In Study 4, we
conducted an EMA study in which participants reported their
momentary nostalgic feelings and well-being at randomly selected
time points throughout the day, thus eliminating the need to recall
any past experiences. The findings from these naturalistic studies
diverged from experimental findings by showing that nostalgia is
a mixed emotion, although more strongly associated with negative
feelings than positive feelings. Study 5 addressed this divergence
between experimental and real-time findings by comparing re-
called nostalgic experiences with daily nostalgic experiences. This
comparison allowed us to determine whether experimentally in-
duced nostalgic recollections are more positive than everyday
nostalgic experiences, a difference that may drive the associations
observed in Studies 3 and 4.
Studies 1a–1d: Scale Construction
The purpose of the first set of studies was to develop a short
nostalgia scale. Although our primary goal was to create a scale
that could assess nostalgia at the daily level, we additionally aimed
to test the psychometric properties of the scale as an individual
difference measure. We initially asked participants to think of their
life in general to assess a trait-like individual difference measure of
nostalgia. The creation of a trait measure of nostalgia would serve
as a foundation for developing daily items to be administered in
daily diary studies.
Study 1a
Method
The cognitive interview portion of Study 1a was approved by
the Institutional Review Board at the University of Southern
California under the ID UP-15– 00625 (Cognitive interview). The
latter part of Study 1a, Study 1b, Study 1c, Study 2, and Study 3
were approved by the Institutional Review Board at the University
of Southern California under the ID UP-15– 00479 (Daily diary
study: State and trait measures).
To generate items for a measure of nostalgia, we initially drew
from four primary sources. First, we considered words written by
students about a recent nostalgic experience (Wildschut et al.,
2006). Second, we read definitions from several dictionaries, such
as Oxford, Merriam-Webster, and Collins English. Third, we con-
sidered the items from scales that have been used to measure
nostalgia in specific contexts, such as the personal nostalgic re-
sponse to advertisements (Marchegiani & Phau, 2013), the Evoked
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327
NOSTALGIA AND WELL-BEING
Nostalgia Scale to assess nostalgia in marketing contexts (Pascal et
al., 2002), and the Batcho Nostalgia Scale (Batcho, 1995) designed
specifically to assess the extent to which people miss aspects of
their past. Fourth, to assess nostalgia in an ecologically valid
context, we called 33 undergraduate students (M
age
⫽20.09, SD ⫽
1.4; 51.52% female) in the evening between 9:00 –11:30 p.m. and
asked them to recount the events of their day. After reconstructing
their day, we asked participants how nostalgic they felt today on a
10-point scale (1 ⫽not at all,10⫽very much). After the
participants provided a numeric rating, we asked them what words
came to mind when they heard the word “nostalgia” or what they
thought of when they thought of the word nostalgia. The answers
to these questions are listed in supplemental Table 1.
From these sources, we created a list of 15 items with the goal
of capturing a wide variety of language used to define nostalgia.
We placed a particular emphasis on the responses recorded by
participants at the end of their day because these descriptions were
recorded in an ecologically valid setting (see supplemental Table
2). We then administered the 15-items to 470 undergraduate stu-
dents from a large private university in the United States. Partic-
ipants were asked, “Please indicate the extent to which each of the
following statements describe you in general.” Responses were
recorded on a 7-point scale (1 ⫽not at all,7⫽very much). As
recommended by Meade and Craig (2012), we included an in-
structed response item to capture insufficient effort responses:
“Please select the choice ‘Very much’ for this question.” Twenty-
six participants failed to answer this question correctly and their
data were removed; final analyses included data from 444 partic-
ipants (M
age
⫽20.21, SD ⫽2.82; 77.5% female).
Results
We factor analyzed responses to the 15 items with the R pack-
age semTools and the function factanal. First, we examined the
eigenvalues (7.62, 1.28, .93, .69, .60, . . .). A single factor solution
seemed most reasonable, but we also examined a two-factor model
using a maximum likelihood estimation with direct oblimin rota-
tion (as recommended by Costello & Osbourne, 2005). The items
did not load onto the two respective factors in a meaningful
manner, so we opted for a single factor model. The factor loadings
are presented next to items in supplemental Table 2.
Study 1b
Method
Some of the 15 items were redundant. Because our goal was to
create a brief scale, we kept the first six items because they had
high factor loadings and still contained varied descriptions of
nostalgia. We distributed the shortened scale to 298 undergraduate
students from the same university as Study 1a (M
age
⫽19.48,
SD ⫽1.69, 71.5% female) in a similar manner.
Results
We ran a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) using the lavaan
package (Rosseel, 2012) in R. All six items were treated as
indicators of a latent construct of nostalgia. The variance of the
latent construct was fixed at 1 so that we could estimate each factor
loading. The data were not multivariate normal as indicated by
Mardia’s tests of skewness, ␥ˆ
1,p
⫽3.82, p⬍.001, and kurtosis,
␥ˆ
2,p
⫽65.12, p⬍.001, so we used a maximum likelihood
estimator with robust standard errors (Yuan & Bentler, 2000). The
standardized loadings of each indicator were as follows: .74, .81,
.70, .81, .76, .83. The model fit was not optimal,
2
(9) ⫽89.58,
p⬍.001; root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) ⫽
.228, 90% confidence interval (CI) [.186, .272]); comparative fit
index (CFI) ⫽.874; standardized root mean square residual
(SRMR) ⫽.065. Therefore, we tested alternative models by drop-
ping items that we felt were redundant with the others. After
dropping items 2 and 4, we found good model fit with items 1, 3,
5, and 6 as indicators of a latent construct. Standardized factor
loadings were .83, .81, .83, .65 and the model fit was considerably
better,
2
(2) ⫽.85, p⫽.66; RMSEA ⫽.000, 90% CI [.000, .121];
CFI ⫽1.00, SRMR ⫽.008. These four items were as follows:
“How nostalgic do you feel?”, “To what extent do you feel
sentimental for the past?”, “How much do you feel a wistful
affection for the past?”, and “To what extent do you feel a longing
to return to a former time in your life?”
Study 1c
Method
Although the four-item model showed good model fit, we may
have capitalized on chance given that the shortened four-item
model was generated after we tested model fit with the initial
6-items. To rule out this possibility, we administered the shortened
four-item scale to 440 undergraduate students (M
age
⫽20.13,
SD ⫽1.93; 69.8% female) during the next semester in a similar
manner as before.
Results
We ran a CFA with the four items as indicators of a single latent
construct as described previously. The data were not multivariate
normal as indicated by Mardia’s tests of skewness, ␥ˆ
1,p
⫽1.62,
p⬍.001, and kurtosis, ␥ˆ
2,p
⫽32.61, p⬍.001. Therefore, we used
a maximum likelihood estimator with robust standard errors (Yuan
& Bentler, 2000). The standardized factor loadings were all above
.70: .82, .84, .85, and .72. Model fit indicators were good:
2
(2) ⫽
.57, p⫽.75, RMSEA ⫽.000, 90% CI [.000, .092], CFI ⫽1.000,
SRMR ⫽.005. Revelle’s coefficient to test reliability was also
sufficiently high (.89) as was Cronbach’s ␣(.87). We note that
Cronbach’s ␣has several documented limitations (Bentler, 2017;
McNeish, 2017), but we report it throughout nevertheless because
of its widespread use. In summary, the four-item measure of
nostalgia demonstrated excellent psychometric properties. The
four items are highlighted with an asterisk in supplemental Table
2and can additionally be found in the Appendix.
Study 1d
Method
Study 1d was approved by the Institutional Review Board at the
University of Southern California under the ID UP-16 – 00003
(test–retest reliability). Next, we tested the reliability of the trait
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328 NEWMAN, SACHS, STONE, AND SCHWARZ
measure by assessing nostalgia as an individual difference at two
time points separated by 10 weeks. This enabled us to examine
measurement invariance and the correlation between latent con-
structs at two time points.
There were 198 undergraduate students signed up for the study
and completed the first measure of nostalgia in exchange for
research credit for a course. The first questionnaire was distributed
at the beginning of the semester and the follow-up questionnaire
was distributed 10 weeks later. Twelve participants did not com-
plete the second questionnaire. Final analyses included 186 par-
ticipants (M
age
⫽20.28, SD ⫽2.57; 77.4% female). Participants
who completed both questionnaires did not differ significantly
from participants who only completed the first questionnaire in
terms of their age, t(16.79) ⫽1.76, p⫽.31, ratio of males to
females (odds ratio ⫽1.14, p⫽.74), or mean levels of nostalgia,
t(12.13) ⫽1.65, p⫽.13. Similar to the previous studies, partic-
ipants were asked to think about their life in general as they
completed the four-item nostalgia scale.
Results
Means, standard deviations, skewness, kurtosis, and interitem
correlations for the trait version of the scale are presented in
supplemental Table 3. Revelle’s measure of reliability was .91
(␣⫽.88) at Time 1 and .89 (␣⫽.88) at Time 2.
We tested measurement invariance across time points using a
confirmatory factor analysis approach as outlined by Vandenberg
and Lance (2000). The four nostalgia items distributed at Time 1
were treated as indicators of a latent construct at Time 1, and the
four nostalgia items at Time 2 were similarly treated as indicators
of a latent construct at Time 2. Errors terms of each nostalgia item
at Time 1 were allowed to freely covary with each respective
nostalgia item at Time 2 (e.g., item1 at Time1 with item1 at
Time2). Variances of each latent construct were fixed to 1 and the
latent constructs were allowed to freely covary.
First, we found that the data were not multivariate normal as
indicated by Mardia’s tests of skewness, ␥ˆ
1,p
⫽6.80, p⬍.001,
and kurtosis, ␥ˆ
2,p
⫽90.77, p⬍.001, so we used a maximum
likelihood estimator with robust standard errors (Yuan & Bentler,
2000). The model fit was good:
2
(2) ⫽18.62, p⫽.23; RM-
SEA ⫽.040, 90% CI [.000, .091]; CFI ⫽.995; SRMR ⫽.025.
The standardized factor loadings at Time 1 were .85, .87, .82, and
.70; at Time 2, the standardized factor loadings were .84, .84, .85,
and .69. The standardized covariation between the latent nostalgia
constructs at Time 1 and Time 2 was .64, z⫽11.26, p⬍.001.
Although this correlation was not as high as some correlations in
test–retest reliability studies involving individual differences, it is
similar to studies that have assessed positive and negative affect at
multiple time points just 4 weeks apart (e.g., Lucas, Diener, & Suh,
1996).
More importantly, we tested measurement invariance to deter-
mine whether the latent constructs of nostalgia at both time points
were represented by the four nostalgia items in similar manners.
The four tests of measurement invariance increase in the extent to
which they restrict the models to be similar to both time points.
Configural or pattern invariance tests whether the number and
pattern of factor loadings remains constant. Weak or metric in-
variance restricts the respective factor loadings at each time to
be equal and tests whether the factor variances and covariances are
equal across time points. Strong or scalar invariance restricts the
intercepts to be equal at each time point and tests whether the
means of each item are consistent. Finally, strict or error invari-
ance restricts the uniquenesses or error terms of each indicator to
be equal. Typically, the former two tests of measurement invari-
ance are considered adequate and the latter two tests are consid-
ered too strict (Little, 2013). As presented in supplemental Table 4,
we found measurement invariance at each level of restriction. That
is, not only were the factor patterns and factor loadings similar at
each time point, but the factor means and error structures were also
consistent over time. This suggests that the four items reliably
measure the underlying construct in a similar manner over time.
Discussion
Thus far, we have established that the four-item measure of
nostalgia concisely summarizes aspects of nostalgia using a variety
of terms. The items show good internal consistency, and they hang
together in a similar manner over time. We now name this scale the
Personal Inventory of Nostalgic Experiences (PINE; see Appendix
for the list of items).
Study 2: Individual Differences in Nostalgia
In this study, we examined the nomological net of nostalgia at
a trait level of analysis. We relied on two of the major theories of
personality, namely approach and avoidance temperament (Elliot
& Thrash, 2002) and the Big Five personality traits (McCrae &
Costa, 1987). Because nostalgia entails thinking about the past, we
considered individual differences in time perspectives captured
with the Time Perspective Inventory (Zimbardo & Boyd, 1999).
We also included several well-being measures, such as satisfaction
with life, meaning in life, affect, self-esteem, and depression
because one of our primary aims was to understand the relation-
ship between nostalgia and well-being. Finally, we examined the
relationships between nostalgia and various other measures that
often predict or relate to well-being, such as optimism, searching
for meaning in life, regret, empathy, and inspiration. These vari-
ables have been measured in previous research on nostalgia, often
as a dependent variable. Our goal was to examine these relation-
ships at a trait level.
We also expected the PINE Scale to be positively related to the
Southampton Nostalgia Scale while not being redundant as
to suggest the items measure the same latent construct. Given that
the Southampton Nostalgia Scale was correlated with various
measures of well-being, a further goal of this study was to compare
the strengths of the relationships between well-being and the PINE
scale with those of the Southampton Nostalgia Scale.
Method
Participants and procedure. Undergraduate students com-
pleted online questionnaires in exchange for course research credit.
Participants were instructed to reflect on their life in general as
they responded to the questions. Seven samples of participants
completed questionnaires online via the survey provider Qualtrics.
Some of the measures were asked in multiple questionnaires, and
we aggregated the samples to increase power in our calculations.
Moreover, some participants completed multiple questionnaires.
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329
NOSTALGIA AND WELL-BEING
For these participants, we included their first questionnaire and
excluded any additional questionnaires that contained a duplicate
measure. The total aggregated sample included 596 (M
age
⫽20.06,
SD ⫽2.2; 72.80% female) unique participants.
Materials.
Nostalgia. Nostalgia was assessed in each sample with the
four-item PINE measure with a 7-point response scale (1 ⫽not at
all,7⫽very much). In three of the samples, participants also
completed the Southampton Nostalgia Scale, which contains 7
items. For example, “How valuable is nostalgia for you?” (1 ⫽not
at all,7⫽very much). When participants completed both scales in
the same questionnaire, the order in which they completed scales
was randomized and a few scales were included in between the
separate nostalgia scales to distribute any potential context effects.
Personality traits and individual differences. Approach or
avoidance temperament and the Big Five were used to assess
personality. We used a 12-item scale to measure approach and
avoidance temperament (Elliot & Thrash, 2010). Responses were
recorded on a 7-point scale (1 ⫽strongly disagree,4⫽neither
agree nor disagree,7⫽strongly agree). In two samples (N⫽
171), we used a 44-item scale to assess the Big Five (John &
Srivastava, 1999), and in one sample (N⫽108) we used the newer
60-item Big Five 2 scale (Soto & John, 2017). Correlations be-
tween nostalgia and the five personality traits did not differ mean-
ingfully between the two measures of the Big Five, so we com-
bined the samples together for the analyses.
The Time Perspective Inventory (TPI; Zimbardo & Boyd, 1999)
includes five factors to describe individual differences in how
participants think about time: past positive (e.g., “It gives me great
pleasure to think about my past”), past negative (e.g., “I think
about the bad things that have happened to me in the past”),
present fatalistic (e.g., “Since whatever will be will be, it doesn’t
really matter what I do”), present hedonic (e.g., “I believe that
getting together with one’s friends to party is one of life’s impor-
tant pleasures”), and future (e.g., “I believe that a person’s day
should be planned ahead each morning”). Responses were re-
corded on a 5-point scale (1 ⫽very uncharacteristic,5⫽very
characteristic).
Well-being and related constructs. Given the focus of the
article, we included several well-being indicators and other con-
structs relevant to well-being (inspiration, empathy, searching for
meaning in life, regret, and depression). Satisfaction with life was
assessed with the five-item Satisfaction with Life Scale (Diener,
Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin, 1985) with responses on a 7-point
scale (1 ⫽strongly disagree,7⫽strongly agree).
Affect was measured using a circumplex model that distin-
guishes valence (positive and negative) and arousal (activated and
deactivated; e.g., Feldman Barrett & Russell, 1998). Items were
taken from a list of adjectives that have been used reliably in daily
diary research (e.g., Brandstätter, 2007;Nezlek, 2005) and were
worded to reflect one’s life in general. Positive activated affect
(PA) was assessed with the words enthusiastic, delighted, happy,
glad, and excited; positive deactivated affect (PD) with the words
calm, peaceful, relaxed, contented, and at ease; negative activated
affect (NA) with stressed, angry, annoyed, tense, and nervous;
negative deactivated affect (ND) with depressed, disappointed,
miserable, gloomy, and sad. Responses were recorded on a 7-point
scale (1 ⫽do not feel this way at all,4⫽feel this way moderately,
7⫽feel this way very strongly).
The two dimensions of meaning in life (presence and search)
were assessed with the Meaning in Life Questionnaire (Steger,
Frazier, Oishi, & Kaler, 2006). Example items include “My life
has a clear sense of purpose” and “I am searching for meaning in
my life” for presence and search, respectively. Responses were
recorded on a 7-point scale (1 ⫽absolutely untrue,7⫽absolutely
true). Self-esteem was assessed with the 10-item Rosenberg scale
(Rosenberg, 1965) with responses recorded on a 4-point scale (1 ⫽
strongly disagree,4⫽strongly agree).
Regret was measured with a 5-item scale that has been used in
the context of decision making (Schwartz et al., 2002). An exam-
ple item is “When I think about how I’m doing in life, I often
assess opportunities I have passed up,” and responses were re-
corded on a 7-point scale (1 ⫽completely disagree,7⫽com-
pletely agree).
Empathy was assessed with the Interpersonal Reactivity Index
(Davis, 1983). The scale is composed of four subscales: perspec-
tive taking, fantasy, empathic concern, and personal distress.
Given our interest in the broad concept, we created an aggregate
score across all subscales. Participants responded on a 5-point
scale (1 ⫽does not describe me well,5⫽describes me very well).
Depression was measured using the Center for Epidemiologic
Studies Depression Scale (Radloff, 1977), which instructs partic-
ipants to recall how often they have felt a particular way during the
past week. The scale contains 20-items (e.g., “I thought my life
had been a failure”). Responses were recorded on a 4-point scale
(0 ⫽rarely or none of the time [less than 1 day] ...,3⫽most or
all of the time [5–7 days]).
Inspiration was measured with four items (e.g., “I feel in-
spired”). After each item, frequency and intensity were recorded
with the questions “How often does this happen?” and “How
deeply or strongly (in general)?” on 7-point response scales (1 ⫽
never,7⫽very often;1⫽not at all,7⫽very deeply or strongly,
respectively; Thrash & Elliot, 2003). As recommended by Thrash
and Elliot (2003), we aggregated these items for a total score of
inspiration and present correlations with nostalgia and all three
inspiration scores (frequency, intensity, and aggregate).
Means for each construct were calculated and used for the
correlations with the exception of depression in which the sum was
used. Reliabilities were calculated using Revelle’s . The number
of participants who completed each measure, the means or sums,
and standard deviations for each measure are included in Table 1.
Results and Discussion
First, we examined the Pearson’s correlations between nostalgia
and personality traits, individual differences, and well-being mea-
sures. The results and descriptive statistics of the measures are
presented in Table 1. Individuals who reported high levels of
nostalgia reported high avoidance temperament but there was no
significant relationship with approach temperament. In terms of
the Big 5, nostalgia was only significantly (positively) related to
neuroticism.
In terms of the time perspective inventory, nostalgia was posi-
tively related to past positive, past negative, present fatalistic, and
present hedonic, but was not related to future. This suggests that
individuals who are prone to nostalgia think about the past in both
positive and negative ways, which is consistent with the notion that
nostalgia is a mixed emotion. In a multiple regression model, we
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330 NEWMAN, SACHS, STONE, AND SCHWARZ
included both past positive and past negative as standardized
predictors simultaneously and found that nostalgia was still sig-
nificantly related to past positive, ⫽.43, t⫽9.97, p⬍.001, and
past negative, ⫽.43, t⫽9.95, p⬍.001.
Regarding well-being and related constructs, nostalgia was neg-
atively (marginally) related to satisfaction with life, meaning in life
(presence), and self-esteem; nostalgia was positively related to
negative activated affect, negative deactivated affect, meaning in
life (search), empathy, inspiration intensity (although not fre-
quency), regret, and depression; and nostalgia was not signifi-
cantly related to positive activated or positive deactivated affect. In
summary, individuals who were prone to nostalgia reported low
levels of well-being, but they also reported higher levels of em-
pathy and inspiration intensity.
Next, we wanted to contrast these correlations with the relation-
ships between nostalgia measured with the Southampton Nostalgia
Scale and other variables. A subsample of participants completed
the PINE and SNS measures. Before examining these compari-
sons, we first conducted separate confirmatory factor analyses to
examine model fit of the PINE and SNS measures. The data were
not multivariate normal for either scale as indicated by Mardia’s
tests of skewness (PINE: ␥ˆ
1,p
⫽.69, p⬍.001; SNS: ␥ˆ
1,p
⫽7.71,
p⬍.001) and kurtosis (PINE: ␥ˆ
2,p
⫽30.22, p⬍.001; SNS: ␥ˆ
2,p
⫽
82.75, p⬍.001), so we used a maximum likelihood estimator with
robust standard errors (Yuan & Bentler, 2000). Fit indices for the
PINE scale showed excellent model fit,
2
(2) ⫽2.47, p⫽.29;
RMSEA ⫽.026, 90% CI [.000, .112]; CFI ⫽1.000; SRMR ⫽
.007. In contrast, the SNS showed unacceptable model fit,
2
(14) ⫽107.60, p⬍.001; RMSEA ⫽.212, 90% CI [.175, .250];
CFI ⫽.898; SRMR ⫽.061.
Finally, we compared the strengths of the relationships between
these two nostalgia scales and a subset of the available individual
difference measures. The correlations were compared using Wi-
lliam’s test because the pairs of dependent correlations shared one
variable (Steiger, 1980;Williams, 1959). The PINE and SNS
measures were positively related, r(228) ⫽.66, p⬍.001. As can
be seen in Table 2, there were a few differences between the
correlations involving the PINE scale and the correlations involv-
ing the SNS. For example, approach temperament was not signif-
icantly related the PINE scale but it was significantly related to
SNS, and these correlations were significantly different. In terms
of the Big 5, the pattern of relations was similar for agreeableness,
conscientiousness, and neuroticism. However, extraversion was
slightly positively related to SNS but was slightly negatively
related to the PINE scale. Although neither correlation was sig-
nificant, the difference between these correlations was significant.
Similarly, openness to experience was positively related to SNS
but was not related to the PINE scale.
Individuals who reported high levels of SNS also reported
higher levels of inspiration, satisfaction with life, meaning in life
(both presence and search), and lower levels of depression in
comparison with individuals who reported high levels of nostalgia
on the PINE scale. In an attempt to understand why the SNS was
more positively related to well-being than the PINE, we considered
Table 1
Descriptive Statistics and Trait Correlations Between Nostalgia and Predictors
Variable NMean SD (␣)r
Nostalgia 596 4.23 1.49 .92 (.91)
Personality/individual differences
Approach 525 5.31 .98 .89 (.84) .00
Avoidance 525 4.46 1.28 .88 (.83) .22
ⴱⴱⴱ
Agreeableness 279 3.71 .61 .81 (.72) .05
Conscientiousness 279 3.41 .66 .87 (.83) ⫺.08
Extraversion 279 3.27 .77 .89 (.84) ⫺.07
Neuroticism 279 3.13 .77 .89 (.86) .21
ⴱⴱⴱ
Openness 279 3.69 .71 .89 (.86) .05
Past positive 356 3.55 .67 .84 (.77) .40
ⴱⴱⴱ
Past negative 356 3.02 .77 .87 (.84) .40
ⴱⴱⴱ
Future 356 3.47 .59 .83 (.79) ⫺.02
Present fatalistic 356 2.58 .65 .81 (.76) .32
ⴱⴱⴱ
Present hedonic 356 3.42 .61 .88 (.85) .20
ⴱⴱⴱ
Well-being/relevant measures
Satisfaction with life 526 4.73 1.32 .89 (.88) ⫺.08
†
Positive activated affect 283 4.54 1.21 .92 (.90) ⫺.02
Positive deactivated affect 283 4.34 1.24 .92 (.90) ⫺.07
Negative activated affect 283 3.72 1.18 .88 (.80) .34
ⴱⴱⴱ
Negative deactivated affect 283 2.89 1.37 .79 (.91) .34
ⴱⴱⴱ
Meaning in life (presence) 525 4.56 1.29 .89 (.87) ⫺.11
ⴱ
Meaning in life (search) 525 4.98 1.3 .93 (.91) .19
ⴱⴱⴱ
Self-esteem 299 3.28 .89 .95 (.90) ⫺.12
ⴱ
Regret 526 4.52 1.12 .80 (.75) .30
ⴱⴱⴱ
Depression 220 21.09 12.12 .93 (.91) .35
ⴱⴱⴱ
Inspiration Frequency 452 4.95 1.28 .93 (.91) ⫺.02
Inspiration Intensity 452 4.58 1.26 .94 (.91) .11
ⴱ
Inspiration Aggregate 452 4.77 1.17 .96 (.93) .05
Empathy 108 3.44 .45 .89 (.82) .23
ⴱ
†
p⬍.10.
ⴱ
p⬍.05.
ⴱⴱ
p⬍.01.
ⴱⴱⴱ
p⬍.001.
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331
NOSTALGIA AND WELL-BEING
the approach-oriented wording of several of the SNS items (e.g.,
“How important is it for you to bring to mind nostalgic experi-
ences?”, “Generally speaking, how often do you bring to mind
nostalgic experiences?”). Pursuing and seeking nostalgic experi-
ences is different from simply feeling nostalgic, which could
explain why the SNS was positively related to approach motiva-
tion and the PINE was not. After controlling for approach moti-
vation in multiple regression analyses with standardized coeffi-
cients, we found that the relationships between SNS and
satisfaction with life, ⫽.06, t⫽.91, p⫽.37, presence of
meaning in life, ⫽.00, t⫽.07, p⫽.95, and depression, ⫽.27,
t⫽2.86, p⬍.01, were more similar to the relationships between
PINE and those respective well-being measures, ⫽.01, t⫽.11,
p⫽.92; ⫽⫺.06, t⫽.91, p⫽.37; ⫽.31, t⫽3.53, p⬍.001,
respectively.
In summary, these findings show that, between-individuals, the
nomological net of nostalgia as measured with the PINE scale is
more negative than previously suggested by the results from trait
correlations involving the SNS (Routledge et al., 2011;Stephan et
al., 2014).
Study 3: Daily States of Nostalgia
After establishing good psychometric properties of the PINE
scale and after examining the between-person nomological net of
nostalgia, we sought to measure nostalgia as it occurred in daily
life in an ecologically valid context. To do so, participants com-
pleted end-of-the-day reports about their daily experiences, state of
well-being, thoughts, and how nostalgic they felt that day. This
type of study can advance our understanding of nostalgia by
showing what types of events and experiences are likely to occur
on days when one feels nostalgic. It also allows for the examina-
tion of within-person relationships between nostalgia, well-being,
and daily events. This level of analysis is mathematically indepen-
dent from the between-person relationships examined in Study 2
and from between-subjects experiments involving nostalgia.
Within-person relationships also address processes that are psy-
chologically distinct from between-person relationships (Affleck,
Zautra, Tennen, & Armeli, 1999).
Method
Participants and procedure. A subset of the participants
from Study 2 (232 undergraduate students; M
age
⫽19.94, SD ⫽
1.68, 82.3% female) signed up for the study in exchange for
research credit. Before completing daily reports, they either
watched an instructional video online or participated in an online
video call with one of the coauthors to learn about the procedure.
They were instructed to complete a daily questionnaire adminis-
tered via e-mail with a Qualtrics link just before going to bed in the
evening. Over the course of 14 days, an e-mail was sent at 9:00
p.m. each evening and a reminder e-mail was sent to participants
at 7:00 am the following morning if they forgot to complete the
questionnaire the night before. Emails completed as late as 10:00
a.m. were accepted, consistent with previous diary studies (e.g.,
Oishi, Diener, Choi, Kim-Prieto, & Choi, 2007).
The diary studies were conducted in three separate semesters
with different participants. Because the procedures were nearly
identical and because the measures used in each sample were very
similar, we aggregated participants across all three samples. Doing
so minimizes the potential of capitalizing on sampling variability.
Separate analyses were also calculated and differences across
samples were not meaningful, so we present the aggregated anal-
yses.
We collected 3,011 daily reports and excluded 287 entries that
were either duplicate entries, completed after 10:00 a.m. the fol-
lowing day, or completed in less than 2 or 3 min (depending on the
sample and number of questions asked). We additionally excluded
data from participants who failed to correctly answer an instructed
response item, (e.g., “Please select ‘A moderate amount’ for this
question”) as recommended by Meade and Craig (2012), or whose
total number of valid completed entries was less than 5. This
resulted in 2,724 entries (90.47%) for analysis, a percentage con-
sistent with many diary studies (Nezlek, 2012, pp. 45– 49). Par-
Table 2
Correlation Comparisons Between the PINE Scale and the SNS
Variable N
Correlation
with PINE
Correlation
with SNS
Correlation
comparison
rrt
Approach 231 .03 .23
ⴱⴱ
⫺3.72
ⴱⴱⴱ
Avoidance 231 .22
ⴱⴱ
.25
ⴱⴱⴱ
⫺.70
Agreeableness 174 .10 .16
ⴱ
⫺1.06
Conscientiousness 174 ⫺.07 .06 ⫺1.99
ⴱ
Extraversion 174 ⫺.10 .11 ⫺3.43
ⴱⴱ
Neuroticism 174 .23
ⴱⴱ
.21
ⴱⴱ
.20
Openness 174 .02 .24
ⴱⴱ
⫺3.72
ⴱⴱⴱ
Satisfaction with life 232 .02 .13
†
⫺2.06
ⴱ
Meaning in life (presence) 231 ⫺.04 .09 ⫺2.43
ⴱ
Meaning in life (search) 231 .23
ⴱⴱ
.34
ⴱⴱⴱ
⫺2.20
ⴱ
Regret 232 .29
ⴱⴱⴱ
.26
ⴱⴱⴱ
.67
Depression 113 .29
ⴱⴱ
.14 2.03
ⴱ
Inspiration frequency 232 .12
†
.28
ⴱⴱⴱ
⫺3.19
ⴱⴱ
Inspiration intensity 232 .14
ⴱ
.31
ⴱⴱⴱ
⫺3.24
ⴱⴱ
Inspiration aggregate 232 .14
ⴱ
.32
ⴱⴱⴱ
⫺3.46
ⴱⴱ
Note. PINE ⫽Personal Inventory of Nostalgic Experiences; SNS ⫽Southampton Nostalgia Scale.
†
p⬍.10.
ⴱ
p⬍.05.
ⴱⴱ
p⬍.01.
ⴱⴱⴱ
p⬍.001.
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332 NEWMAN, SACHS, STONE, AND SCHWARZ
ticipants completed an average of 11.74 of the 14 possible daily
questionnaires (SD ⫽2.14) and the minimum number of com-
pleted reports was 5.
Measures.
Daily events. Participants first answered 26 questions about
events and experiences that are common in everyday life among
undergraduate students. The list of events is a compilation from the
Daily Event Schedule (Butler, Hokanson, & Flynn, 1994), the
Objective/Subjective Event Checklist (Seidlitz & Diener, 1993),
and other items from a diary study by Gable, Reis, and Elliot
(2000). Events were grouped into categories of positive social
(e.g., “Had especially good interactions with friend(s) or acquain-
tances”), positive achievement (e.g., “Completed work on an in-
teresting project or assignment”), negative social (e.g., “Was ex-
cluded or left out by my group of friends”), and negative
achievement (e.g., “Fell behind in coursework or duties”). Addi-
tionally, we created five items concerning events that would likely
covary with nostalgic experiences: “Met up with a friend or
acquaintance you hadn’t seen in a long time,” “Sent email, text,
Facebook message, or communicated in some way with an old
friend or acquaintance,” “Heard a song that I had not heard in a
long time,” “Watched a movie or part of a movie (e.g., YouTube
clip) that reminded me of my past,” and “Saw an old photo of
myself or friends (on Instagram, Facebook, text, etc.).” These five
nostalgic events were administered in the third sample only. The
first two items were included in the first and second samples. For
each daily event, participants responded on a 5-point scale (0 ⫽
did not occur,1⫽occurred and not important,2⫽occurred and
somewhat important,3⫽occurred and pretty important,4⫽
occurred and extremely important). The average score was calcu-
lated which provides a measure that captures whether an event
occurred and how important the event was to the participant.
Helping behavior was measured with 10 items that assessed the
extent to which they helped strangers with everyday activities
(e.g., “Today, I gave directions to a stranger or acquaintance”).
These items were originally adapted from the Self-Report Altruism
Scale (Philippe Rushton, Chrisjohn, & Cynthia Fekken, 1981) and
later consolidated and reworded for a daily diary study (Morelli,
Rameson, & Lieberman, 2014). Responses were recorded on the
same response scale as the daily events (0 ⫽did not occur ...,4⫽
occurred and extremely important).
To measure the extent to which participants engaged in social
media, we created several items that were adapted from previous
daily diary studies (Walters & Horton, 2015;Wenninger, Kras-
nova, & Buxmann, 2014). These items were meant to assess active
(e.g., sending messages to a friend) and passive (e.g., viewing
images of friends) participation. In the first two samples, items
were worded specifically for Facebook use, whereas the items in
the third sample were edited to more broadly include many forms
of social media, such as Instagram. Edited items occur after the
backslash. Participants were asked, “Of the time you spent on
Facebook/social media today, to what extent did you engage in the
following activities?” The items were: “Passively scrolling
through my news feed/Passively scrolling through the feed,”
“Commenting on friends’ posts, status updates, pictures, etc./
Commenting on posts or photos,” “Messaging friends/Direct mes-
saging friends,” “Updating my status/Updating my status/profile,”
“Uploading pictures or videos/Publishing posts or photos,”
“Searching through specific people’s profiles or pictures/Looking
at specific people’s accounts,” and “Playing games.” Responses
were recorded on a 7-point scale (1 ⫽not at all,7⫽a great deal).
The results across the studies did not differ meaningfully, so we
combined the items for a composite score.
Nostalgia. To measure daily states of nostalgia, we asked
participants to indicate the extent to which the PINE statements
described them today. Items were worded in the past tense (“How
nostalgic did you feel today?”, “To what extent did you feel
sentimental for the past?”, “How much did you feel a wistful
affection for the past?”, “To what extent did you feel a longing to
return to a former time in your life?”). Responses were recorded on
a 7-point scale (1 ⫽not at all,7⫽very much).
Temporal thoughts. To assess convergent and discriminant
validity at the daily level, we included three items to assess the
extent to which participants thought about the past, present, and
future each day: “Today, how often did you think about things that
had occurred in the past?”, “How often were you focused today on
what was happening in the moment?”, and “Today, how often did
you think about things that are to come in your future?” These
single items have been adapted from a longer trait version (Shipp,
Edwards, & Lambert, 2009) and have been used reliably at the
daily level (Rush & Grouzet, 2012). Responses were recorded on
a 9-point scale (1 ⫽never,9⫽constantly).
Well-being. Similar to affect in Study 2, daily affective states
were measured using a circumplex model. Participants were asked
to indicate how strongly they felt each adjective today on a 7-point
scale (1 ⫽did not feel this way at all,4⫽felt this way moderately,
7⫽felt this way very strongly). The same adjectives from Study
2 were used in the diary studies. In addition to the 20 adjectives
used to measure the affect circumplex, loneliness was assessed
with the items alone and lonely, similar to the methods and items
used to assess daily states of loneliness in previous research (e.g.,
Doane & Adam, 2010;Jonason, Webster, & Lindsey, 2008).
Daily states of satisfaction with life were assessed with a single
item: “How satisfied were you with your life today?” Responses
were recorded on a 7-point scale (1 ⫽not at all,7⫽very much).
Daily states of meaning in life were distinguished by the extent
to which one found meaning in life (presence) and the extent to
which one searched for meaning in life (search) on that day.
Presence was assessed with the items, “How meaningful did you
feel your life was today?” and “How much did you feel your life
had purpose today?”; search was assessed with the items, “How
much were you searching for meaning in your life today?” and
“How much were you looking to find your life’s purpose today?”,
similar to previous diary studies that have assessed these con-
structs (e.g., Newman, Nezlek, & Thrash, 2018;Steger & Kash-
dan, 2013). Responses were recorded on a 7-point scale (1 ⫽not
at all,7⫽very much).
Daily states of inspiration were measured with three items that
have been adapted from a trait measure to be administered at the
daily level (Thrash & Elliot, 2003;Thrash, Elliot, Maruskin, &
Cassidy, 2010). These items were, “Something I encountered or
experienced inspired me today,” “Today I felt inspired,” and
“Today I was inspired to do something.” Responses were recorded
on a 7-point scale (1 ⫽not at all,7⫽very strongly).
Regret was captured with three items that were adapted from a
trait measure (Schwartz et al., 2002). Similar to Newman, Schug,
Yuki, Yamada, and Nezlek (2018), the items were reworded at the
daily level: “Whenever I made a choice today, I was curious about
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333
NOSTALGIA AND WELL-BEING
what would have happened if I had chosen differently,” “Today,
when I thought about how I’m doing in life, I often thought about
the opportunities I had passed up,” and “Whenever I made a choice
today, I tried to get information about how the other alternatives
would have turned out.” Responses were recorded on a 7-point
scale (1 ⫽strongly disagree,4⫽neither agree nor disagree,7⫽
strongly agree).
Daily states of self-esteem were measured with four items that
were adapted from Rosenberg’s (1965) 10-item trait measure to
reflect the daily state (Nezlek, 2005). These items were “Today, I
felt like a failure,” “Today, I felt that I had many good qualities,”
“Today, I thought I was no good at all,” and “Today, on the whole,
I was satisfied with myself.” Responses were recorded on a 7-point
scale (1 ⫽very uncharacteristic of me today,7⫽very charac-
teristic of me today).
Rumination and reflection were assessed with three items for
each construct that were adapted from the trait measures developed
by Trapnell and Campbell (1999). The rumination items were
“How much today did you ruminate or dwell on things that
happened to you?”, “How much today did you play back over in
my mind how you acted in a past situation?”, and “How much
today did you spend time rethinking things that are over and done
with?”; the reflection items were “How much today did you think
about your attitudes and feelings?”, “How much today did you
think about the nature and meaning of things?”, and “How much
today did you think introspectively or self-reflectively, i.e., about
yourself and what you are like?”. Because the reliability for
reflection was not as high as we had hoped (.46), we removed the
second item following the advice of Nezlek (2012) and practice of
Newman and Nezlek (2019).
Optimism was measured with three items that were adapted and
reworded from the Life Orientation Test–Revised (Scheier,
Carver, & Bridges, 1994). These items were “I usually expected
the best today,” “Today, I was optimistic about my future,” and
“Overall, I expected more good things to happen to me today than
bad.” Responses were recorded on a 7-point scale (1 ⫽very
uncharacteristic of me today,7⫽very characteristic of me today).
Results
Overview. These data were multilevel in nature such that i
days were nested within jpersons. Because of this nested structure,
we could not assume independence among observations, so we
used multilevel modeling to differentiate between- and within-
person variation. We used the program HLM 7.01 (Raudenbush,
Bryk, & Congdon, 2011) for all analyses and reported unstandard-
ized coefficients. We began by presenting descriptive statistics
of each variable by providing estimates of the means, the amount
of variance between- and within-individuals, and the reliability of
each variable. Next, we analyzed the within-person relationships
between nostalgia and daily events to understand when people
were likely to feel nostalgic. We also provided convergent and
discriminant validity by examining the extent to which nostalgia
covaries with daily thoughts about the past, present, and future.
After these models, we examined within-person relationships be-
tween nostalgia and well-being and variables relevant to well-
being, such as regret, inspiration, and rumination. We built models
with and without controls for negative events. Finally, we exam-
ined lagged analyses as one potential method of testing causal
pathways involving nostalgia.
Descriptive statistics. To provide estimates of the means and
variances, we created unconditional or null models, which means
that each variable was entered as the outcome or dependent vari-
able in separate models without any predictors. The intercept was
allowed to vary randomly and the coefficient value takes into
account the number of observations provided by each participant.
The unconditional model also provides estimates of within- and
between-person variation. These results are presented in Table 3.
Nostalgia’s mean was 2.69 on a 1–7 scale, and a closer examina-
tion of the distribution suggested the variable was positively
skewed. On 30.6% of the days, participants reported feeling not
nostalgic at all. Roughly half of the variance of nostalgia occurred
within-individuals, similar to measures of affect and loneliness.
The means of all of the constructs were sufficiently far away from
the endpoints of the scales so ceiling effects were not an issue.
To calculate the reliability of each variable, we followed rec-
ommendations by Nezlek (2017). Three level models were created
in which items were nested within days, and days were nested
within persons. The intercepts of these null models provide ratios
of true variance over total variance without confounding within-
and between-person variation. These statistics are presented in
Table 3. Notably, the reliability of the four items measuring daily
states of nostalgia was reasonably high (.90).
To offer additional support of the construct validity of the trait
PINE scale, we examined the correlation between the daily aver-
age nostalgia score and the trait nostalgia score. The correlation
was calculated by taking the square root of the percent the
between-person variance from the nostalgia null model was re-
duced when the PINE scale was entered as a predictor at Level 2.
This percentage of reduced variance is conceptually equivalent to
r
2
. The square root, r, was .72, indicating reasonable validity.
Relationships between daily events/temporal thoughts and
nostalgia. To understand when people were likely to experience
nostalgia, we created two-level models in which days were nested
within persons. Nostalgia was the outcome measure and daily
events were entered group-mean centered (i.e., centered around
each individual’s mean) at Level 1 to control for any individual
differences in these measures (Enders & Tofighi, 2007). Error
terms were trimmed if the random effects were not significant,
defined loosely as p⫽.15 (as recommended by Nezlek, 2012, pp.
65– 68). We also added a time variable, which was group-mean
centered at Level 1, to account for a possible linear trend in the
data. Doing so controls for such trends without formally modeling
autocorrelated error (Nezlek, 2012, p. 114 –117).
1
The model was
as follows:
Day level : yij(nostalgia) ⫽
0j ⫹
1j(positive social events)
⫹
2j(negative social events)
⫹3j(positive achievement events)
1
Time coefficients indicated a slight negative autocorrelation (ranging
from b⫽⫺.00, t⫽.10, p⫽.92, to b⫽⫺.03, t⫽4.91, p⬍.001), but
inclusion of the time coefficient did not meaningfully change the fixed
effects of primary interest (the largest change of a fixed effect was from
b⫽.53, t⫽7.16, p⬍.001, to b⫽.57, t⫽7.96, p⬍.001).
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334 NEWMAN, SACHS, STONE, AND SCHWARZ
⫹
4j(negative achievement events)
⫹5j(time) ⫹rij
Person level: 0j ⫽␥
00 ⫹u0j
1j ⫽␥
10 ⫹u1j
2j ⫽␥
20 ⫹u2j
3j ⫽␥
30 ⫹u3j
4j ⫽␥
40 ⫹u4j
5j ⫽␥
50 ⫹u5j
Daily states of nostalgia were positively related to negative
social events, ␥
20
⫽.30, t⫽3.58, p⬍.001, and negative
achievement events, ␥
40
⫽.21, t⫽3.79, p⬍.001, and were not
significantly related to positive social events, ␥
10
⫽.05, t⫽1.13,
p⫽.26, or positive achievement events, ␥
30
⫽⫺.00, t⬍1, p⫽
.93. To interpret these unstandardized coefficients, as negative
social events increase by 1 point on the raw scale (0 ⫽did not
occur,4⫽occurred and extremely important) for the average
individual, nostalgia increases by .30 on the raw scale (1 ⫽not at
all,7⫽very much) holding all other daily events constant. That is,
participants on average were likely to feel nostalgic when negative
events occurred. The strengths of the relationships between nos-
talgia and social and achievement events were not significantly
different, positive:
2
(1) ⫽.62, p⬎.5; negative:
2
(1) ⫽.62, p⬎
.5, so we aggregated across social and achievement events to
create composite positive and negative event scores. We addition-
ally constrained the coefficients to be equal with a
2
based test of
fixed effects. Consistent with the notion that the “bad is stronger
than the good” (Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Finkenauer, & Vohs,
2001), the relationship between nostalgia and negative events,
␥
20
⫽.53, t⫽7.16, p⬍.001, was stronger than the relationship
between nostalgia and positive events, ␥
10
⫽.08, t⫽1.25, p⫽
.21;
2
(1) ⫽18.57, p⬍.001.
Next, we entered the nostalgic events variable as a sole
predictor group-mean centered and found a positive relationship
with nostalgia, ␥
10
⫽.29, t⫽7.27, p⬍.001. Likewise, we
found significant positive relationships between nostalgia and
helping behavior, ␥
10
⫽.27, t⫽3.01, p⬍.01, between
nostalgia and active social media use, ␥
10
⫽.21, t⫽4.30, p⬍
.001, and between nostalgia and passive social media use, ␥
10
⫽
.15, t⫽5.00, p⬍.001. This means that people were likely to
feel nostalgic when they met friends/acquaintances they had not
seen in a long time, heard a song they had not heard in a while,
helped others, and engaged in social media either actively or
passively.
Finally, to examine convergent and discriminant validity, we as-
sumed participants would be more likely to think about the past than
the present or future when they felt nostalgic. To test this, we created
a model in which nostalgia was the outcome measure and past
(“Today, how often did you think about things that had occurred in the
Table 3
Descriptive Statistics for All Daily Measures for Study 3
Daily measure No. daily reports Intercept
Variance
ReliabilityWithin Between
Nostalgia 2,723 2.69 1.47 1.45 .90
Daily events
Positive social events 2,724 .88 .38 .22
Negative social events 2,723 .31 .14 .08
Positive achievement events 2,724 .73 .29 .15
Negative achievement events 2,724 .62 .24 .14
Nostalgia events 2,721 .63 .49 .17
Social media active 2,703 1.77 .36 .41
Social media passive 2,702 3.52 .92 1.54
Helping 2,028 .25 .09 .07
Temporal thoughts
Past 2,722 3.86 3.51 1.96
Present 2,722 5.93 3.06 2.05
Future 2,721 5.86 3.72 2.00
Well-being and relevant measures
Positive activated affect 2,722 3.72 1.33 1.11 .84
Positive deactivated affect 2,722 3.66 1.13 1.01 .85
Negative activated affect 2,722 3.04 1.21 .75 .67
Negative deactivated affect 2,724 2.31 1.05 .86 .79
Loneliness 2,721 2.31 1.23 1.26 .81
Satisfaction with life 2,016 4.58 1.42 .99
Meaning (presence) 2,723 3.76 1.46 1.53 .86
Meaning (search) 2,723 2.67 1.28 1.38 .88
Self-esteem 1,321 4.98 .93 .99 .52
Inspiration 2,721 3.19 2.00 1.17 .90
Optimism 1,321 4.30 1.24 1.45 .82
Regret 1,321 3.19 1.14 .99 .64
Rumination 695 3.02 1.46 .93 .79
Reflection 695 3.59 1.43 1.25 .63
Note. Reliability statistics were not calculated for single item measures or for daily events as we did not expect
them to be internally consistent as suggested by Stone, Kessler, and Haythomthwatte (1991).
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335
NOSTALGIA AND WELL-BEING
past?”), present (“How often were you focused today on what was
happening in the moment?”), and future (“Today, how often did you
think about things that are to come in your future?”) were entered
simultaneously group-mean centered at Level 1:
Day level : yij(nostalgia) ⫽
0j ⫹
1j(past) ⫹
2j(present)
⫹
3j(future) ⫹
4j(time) ⫹rij
Person level: 0j ⫽␥
00 ⫹u0j
1j ⫽␥
10 ⫹u1j
2j ⫽␥
20 ⫹u2j
3j ⫽␥
30 ⫹u3j
4j ⫽␥
40 ⫹u4j
As predicted, people were likely to feel nostalgic when thinking
about the past, ␥
10
⫽.41, t⫽24.90, p⬍.001, rather than the
present, ␥
20
⫽.01, t⬍1, p⫽.38, or future, ␥
30
⫽.01, t⬍1, p⫽
.38.
Relationships between nostalgia and well-being and related
constructs. In the next set of models, we examined the relation-
ships between daily states of nostalgia and various well-being
measures and other relevant measures that have been linked to
nostalgia in previous studies. Nostalgia was entered as a group-
mean centered predictor at Level 1 and each well-being variable
was entered as the outcome measure in separate analyses.
Day level : yij(well-being) ⫽
0j ⫹
1j(nostalgia)
⫹
2j(time) ⫹rij
Person level: 0j ⫽␥
00 ⫹u0j
1j ⫽␥
10 ⫹u1j
2j ⫽␥
20 ⫹u2j
As can be seen in Table 4, on days when people felt nostalgic, they
also reported greater negative affect (both activated and deacti-
vated), loneliness, regret, rumination, reflection, searching for
meaning, and inspiration. On these days, they also reported less
satisfaction with life and self-esteem. Nostalgia was not signifi-
cantly related to positive activated affect, positive deactivated
affect, presence of meaning in life, or optimism.
Given that people felt nostalgic when negative events oc-
curred, it is possible that the negative relationships between
nostalgia and well-being could be caused by negative events
which would presumably lower well-being. To test this possi-
bility, we created models in which we statistically adjusted for
negative events by adding this measure as a predictor along
with nostalgia at Level 1. The results of these analyses re-
mained largely the same although the relationships between
nostalgia and well-being were slightly attenuated (see Table 4).
These analyses showed that the negative relationships between
nostalgia and well-being cannot simply be attributed to the
negative effects associated with negative events.
Lagged analyses. To provide some insight into the direction
of the effects between nostalgia, daily events, and well-being, we
examined 1-day lagged relationships between these measures (for
a discussion of the logic of such analyses, see Nezlek, 2012,p.
111–114). We used temporal precedence as a proxy for causality
(West & Hepworth, 1991) while still acknowledging the caveat
that third variables could potentially explain the relationships. To
test the lagged effect to nostalgia, yesterday’s nostalgia and yes-
terday’s daily events/well-being were used to predict today’s nos-
talgia. To test the lagged effect from nostalgia, today’s daily
events/well-being were the outcome measure:
Lag to nostalgia :␥ij(nostalgia day n)
⫽
0j⫹
1j(nostalgia day n⫺1)
⫹
2j(daily event ⁄ well-being day n⫺1) ⫹rij
Lag from nostalgia :␥ij(daily event ⁄ well-being day n)
⫽
0j⫹
1j(nostalgia day n⫺1)
⫹
2j(daily event ⁄ well-being day n⫺1) ⫹rij
In the first set of models, yesterday’s loneliness, ␥
20
⫽.05, t⫽
2.00, p⬍.05, was positively related to today’s nostalgia, and
yesterday’s active social media use, ␥
20
⫽⫺.11, t⫽2.15, p⬍.05,
was negatively related to today’s nostalgia. Reverse lagged effects
involving these variables were not significant (all ts⬍1.13, ps⬎
.25). This suggests that loneliness leads people to feel more nos-
talgic on the following day, and active social media use leads
people to feel less nostalgic the following day. In the second set of
models, yesterday’s nostalgia was positively related to today’s
negative events, ␥
10
⫽.02, t⫽2.34, p⫽.02; ␥
10
⫽.02, t⫽2.60,
p⫽.01 (both social and achievement, respectively), thinking
about the past, ␥
10
⫽.14, t⫽2.67, p⬍.01, and rumination, ␥
10
⫽
.17, t⫽2.46, p⬍.05, and was negatively related to PD,
␥
10
⫽⫺.05, t⫽2.02, p⬍.05. Reverse lagged effects were not
significant (all ts⬍1.46, all ps⬎.14).
2
This suggests that
nostalgia could lead people to experience negative events, to think
about the past more, to ruminate, and to feel less peaceful and calm
on the following day. Finally, there were significant positive
lagged relationships from ND to nostalgia, ␥
20
⫽.06, t⫽2.07,
p⬍.05, and from nostalgia to ND, ␥
10
⫽.05, t⫽2.20, p⫽.03.
This means that yesterday’s nostalgia is likely to make one feel sad
and depressed on the following day, and yesterday’s sadness and
depression are likely to lead one to feel more nostalgic on the
following day. All other lagged relationships were not significant
(all ts⬍1.55, ps⬎.12). In summary, nostalgia tends to have
mostly negative effects on one’s well-being the following day.
Discussion
These results show that nostalgic feelings varied considerably
from day to day. People were more likely to feel nostalgic when
negative events occurred than when positive events occurred. They
were also likely to feel nostalgic on days when they helped others,
were reminded of old friendships or music, felt inspired, and
engaged in social media use. Despite a few positive or mixed
effects, the predominant finding was that people reported lower
levels of well-being on days when they felt nostalgic, and these
effects remained even after statistically adjusting for negative
events. Lagged relationships also indicated that experiencing nos-
talgia on one day was negatively related to one’s well-being on the
following day.
2
Because loneliness was positively related to tomorrow’s nostalgia, we
controlled for loneliness in the other lagged analyses. Substantive conclu-
sions remained the same, namely that nostalgia was still significantly
related to tomorrow’s negative social and achievement events, thinking
about the past, rumination, and PD.
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336 NEWMAN, SACHS, STONE, AND SCHWARZ
Study 4: Momentary States of Nostalgia
Study 3 showed that everyday nostalgia relates negatively to
well-being, in contrast to the positive effects of nostalgia observed
in experimental laboratory studies. This observed discrepancy
could be because of differences in the measurement of nostalgia
and/or differences in the extent to which nostalgia has been mea-
sured or manipulated in ecologically valid contexts. Alternatively,
this discrepancy could be because of differences in the question-
naire reporting period. In the experimental studies, nostalgia was
manipulated and the dependent variable was measured either im-
mediately or within a few minutes of the manipulation. In contrast,
participants in Study 3 were asked to reflect on their entire day. It
is possible that nostalgia has immediate positive benefits but that
these effects dissipate relatively quickly. If so, the benefits of
nostalgia may not be captured by end-of-day diaries because they
may dissipate before participants complete their diaries.
To address the latter possibility, we conducted an ecological
momentary assessment study in which participants completed re-
ports of how nostalgic they felt at randomly selected moments
during the day; thus, shrinking the temporal distance between
experience and report. Random selection of time points throughout
the day aims to capture a representative sample of the larger
population of time points in participants’ current lives (Shiffman et
al., 2008). If nostalgia has an immediate positive effect, people
should report high levels of well-being at moments when they feel
nostalgic. Alternatively, if the positive effects of nostalgia are
limited to extreme and memorable episodes, positive within-
person relationships between momentary nostalgia and momentary
well-being should not be observed in EMA data, which privilege
the more modest experiences of daily life.
Method
Study 4 was approved by the Institutional Review Board at the
University of Southern California under the ID UP-17– 00143
(EMA nostalgia).
Participants and procedure. There were 79 undergraduate
students who signed up for the study in exchange for research
credits. Participants initially completed a questionnaire containing
a few brief personality measures (nostalgia, meaning in life ques-
tionnaire, neuroticism) and some demographics. The questionnaire
also contained instructions about the procedure of the study and
how to download the Personal Analytics Companion (PACO) app
on their mobile phone (Evans, 2016).
Notifications were sent to the participant via the PACO app at
eight random times during the day from 9:00 a.m. until 10:00 p.m.
Each notification occurred at least 45 min after the previous
notification. After receiving the notification, participants could
open their app and complete a short questionnaire. Consistent with
the practice of a recent EMA study (Hofmann, Wisneski, Brandt,
& Skitka, 2014), the notifications were accepted up until 2 h after
the notification was sent. Participants received notifications each
day for 7 days so that both weekday and weekend days could be
represented.
Seven participants decided to drop out of the study after signing
up or after completing just a few responses because of scheduling
issues or for unknown reasons. Two other participants completed
less than 40% of the notifications. Data were analyzed from 70
participants (M
age
⫽20.53, SD ⫽1.63, 75.71% female) who
completed 2,922 momentary reports. On average, participants
completed 41.74 (75.3%) responses (SD ⫽7.79, minimum per-
centage was 44.64%).
Measures. At each notification, participants answered three
questions about where they were, what they were doing and
who they were with. Next, they completed eight items about
their emotional states, and individual items about how nostalgic
they felt, how meaningful they found their lives at the moment,
and how optimistic they felt about their life at the moment.
The goal in asking the three questions about the activity of the
participant was to capture a broad sense of what activities covary
with momentary states of nostalgia. Given that this was the first
study to assess nostalgia in the moment, we thought such questions
Table 4
Relationships Between Nostalgia and Well-Being/Well-Being Related Variables With and Without Controlling for Negative Events
Variable No. daily reports
Without control With control
Nostalgia Nostalgia Negative events
Coefficient tratio Coefficient tratio Coefficient tratio
Positive activated affect 2,721 .00 ⬍1 .03 1.08 ⫺.68 7.76
ⴱⴱⴱ
Positive deactivated affect 2,721 ⫺.04 1.69
†
⫺.01 ⬍1⫺.73 9.50
ⴱⴱⴱ
Negative activated affect 2,721 .13 5.55
ⴱⴱⴱ
.08 4.00
ⴱⴱⴱ
1.25 15.10
ⴱⴱⴱ
Negative deactivated affect 2,723 .20 8.13
ⴱⴱⴱ
.16 6.98
ⴱⴱⴱ
1.06 14.12
ⴱⴱⴱ
Loneliness 2,720 .17 6.53
ⴱⴱⴱ
.15 5.92
ⴱⴱⴱ
.55 6.73
ⴱⴱⴱ
Satisfaction with life 2,016 ⫺.12 3.92
ⴱⴱⴱ
⫺.09 2.85
ⴱⴱ
⫺1.06 9.64
ⴱⴱⴱ
Meaning (presence) 2,722 ⫺.01 ⬍1 .01 ⬍1⫺.55 5.41
ⴱⴱⴱ
Meaning (search) 2,722 .11 4.45
ⴱⴱⴱ
.11 4.61
ⴱⴱⴱ
⫺.06 ⬍1
Self-esteem 1,321 ⫺.12 4.14
ⴱⴱⴱ
⫺.08 3.12
ⴱⴱ
⫺.85 8.78
ⴱⴱⴱ
Inspiration 2,721 .11 3.69
ⴱⴱⴱ
.13 4.41
ⴱⴱⴱ
⫺.48 5.04
ⴱⴱⴱ
Optimism 1,321 ⫺.02 ⬍1⫺.00 ⬍1⫺.54 5.01
ⴱⴱⴱ
Regret 1,321 .18 6.32
ⴱⴱⴱ
.17 5.70
ⴱⴱⴱ
.38 4.76
ⴱⴱⴱ
Rumination 695 .49 9.84
ⴱⴱⴱ
.48 9.98
ⴱⴱⴱ
.75 5.13
ⴱⴱⴱ
Reflection 695 .36 7.17
ⴱⴱⴱ
.34 6.99
ⴱⴱⴱ
.48 3.27
ⴱⴱ
†
p⬍.10.
ⴱ
p⬍.05.
ⴱⴱ
p⬍.01.
ⴱⴱⴱ
p⬍.001.
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337
NOSTALGIA AND WELL-BEING
would be informative. We realize that these questions are not
comprehensive in capturing all possible situations, as is the goal of
questionnaires such as the DIAMONDS (Rauthmann et al., 2014),
Riverside Situational Q-Sort (e.g., Sherman, Nave, & Funder,
2010), or CAPTION (Parrigon, Woo, Tay, & Wang, 2017). Be-
cause such questionnaires require many items, we opted instead for
a brief set of three items to capture the activity of the participant.
The first question asked, “Where are you right now?” with
the following options: Home/dorm/apartment, At a friend’s
place, School, Traveling, and Other. The second question
asked, “What are you doing right now?” with the options:
Working/studying, Eating, Exercising, Traveling, and Other
leisure. The third question asked, “Who are you with?” with the
following options: Friends, Coworkers/classmates, Family,
Strangers, and Alone. For each question, the response options
were not mutually exclusive; that is, participants were allowed
to select multiple options.
Following the questions about the participants’ activity,
questions regarding well-being were included to capture some
of the corresponding well-being related measures that have
been used in laboratory settings, such as positive affect (Wild-
schut et al., 2006), meaning in life (Routledge et al., 2011), and
optimism (Cheung et al., 2013). Therefore, we included single
items to measure meaning in life (“How meaningful do you find
your life right now?”) and optimism (“How optimistic do you
feel about your life right now?”). In terms of emotions, rather
than focusing exclusively on positive affect, we additionally
included negative affect items. Similar to the daily diary stud-
ies, we relied on an affective circumplex model and used two
items for each quadrant by selecting items that had high factor
loadings from the previous studies. Positive activated affect was
assessed with excited and enthusiastic; positive deactivated
affect was assessed with calm and relaxed; negative activated
affect was assessed with tense and stressed; negative deacti-
vated affect was assessed with depressed and sad. Participants
were asked, “How [emotion adjective] do you feel right now?”
The single item for nostalgia was, “How nostalgic do you feel
right now?” Participants answered each item by responding on
a 7-point scale (1 ⫽not at all,7⫽very much).
Results
Overview. To account for the nested data structure, we used
multilevel modeling. In most of the models, we nested moments
within days, and days were nested within persons to account for
between-person variation, within-person between-day variation,
and within-person within-day variation. In the preliminary
models, we examined the reliabilities of the affect items. We
also ran basic descriptive statistics and unconditional models to
understand how much variation of each construct occurred at
each level of analysis. In the first primary set of models, we
examined the relationships between nostalgia and momentary
activities in an exploratory manner to understand which types of
activities were most likely to covary with momentary states of
nostalgia. In the second primary set of analyses, we examined
the within-person relationships between momentary states of
nostalgia and momentary states of affect, meaning in life, and
optimism. Finally, we examined lagged analyses to determine
what type of short-term effects nostalgia had on affect, meaning
in life, and optimism.
Descriptive statistics. Reliability analyses for the affect
measures were conducted by nesting items within moments, and
moments within persons. A response variable at the item level
was the dependent variable in unconditional models. Similar to
the reliability analyses from the diary studies, the reliability
estimate of the intercept provides an estimate of the true vari-
ance over total variance, a classic definition of reliability. This
method of calculating reliability does not confound between-
and within-person variation as Cronbach’s alpha would (Ne-
zlek, 2017). The reliabilities of the affect measures were .75 or
higher. All other measures were assessed with a single item and
their reliability estimate could not be calculated.
To provide estimates of how much variation of each construct
occurred at each level of analysis, unconditional models were
run in which moments were nested within days, and days were
nested within individuals. See Table 5 for the descriptive sta-
tistics. More than half of the variation for nostalgia, meaning in
life, and optimism occurred between individuals. Of the within-
person variation, more than half occurred within-day as op-
posed to between-day. For PA, PD, and NA, more variation
Table 5
Descriptive Statistics of Variables in Study 4 and Within-Person Relationships Between Momentary Nostalgia and Momentary Well-
Being After Adjusting for a Linear Time Trend
Variable Reliability
Unconditional
model intercept
Variation
Between-person
Within-person
Within-person
relationships
Between-day Within-day Coefficient tratio
Nostalgia 2.25 1.73 .19 .79
Meaning in life 4.09 1.24 .19 .57 .04 1.50
Optimism 4.34 1.14 .22 .64 .04 1.49
Positive activated affect .79 3.41 .73 .37 1.16 .05 1.32
Positive deactivated affect .80 4.02 .63 .37 1.11 .01 ⬍1
Negative activated affect .75 2.78 .69 .57 .97 .01 ⬍1
Negative deactivated affect .78 1.91 .78 .29 .50 .16 5.44
ⴱⴱⴱ
†
p⬍.10.
ⴱ
p⬍.05.
ⴱⴱ
p⬍.01.
ⴱⴱⴱ
p⬍.001.
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338 NEWMAN, SACHS, STONE, AND SCHWARZ
occurred within-individuals within-day than either within-
individuals between-day or between-individuals. About half of
the variation for ND occurred between-individuals and about a
third of the variation occurred within-individuals within-day.
These results suggest that sufficient within-individual within-
day variation occurred to examine within-person relationships
between momentary states of nostalgia and well-being related
constructs.
The distribution of nostalgia was positively skewed. Participants
reported feeling not at all nostalgic 51.67% of the total moments.
Relationships between nostalgia and momentary events.
To understand when participants felt nostalgic, we created
models involving the type of activity, the location of the par-
ticipant, and the type of people the participant was with. Be-
cause these variables were not mutually exclusive, we created
dummy codes for each answer to specify whether the person
was or was not engaged in a particular activity. Each dummy
code was entered uncentered into the model at Level 1, and the
Level 1 intercept was dropped. This meant that the coefficient
for each dummy code represented the mean levels of nostalgia
for each activity. These coefficients were then constrained with
a
2
based test of fixed effects to determine whether these
coefficients differed significantly. A variable representing the
occasion of measurement was entered group-mean centered to
control for mean level changes in the outcome within each day.
3
Momentary level: yijk(nostalgia)
⫽1jk(activity present dummy code)
⫹2jk(activity absent dummy code)
⫹3jk(time) ⫹eijk
Day level: activity present : 1jk ⫽
10k⫹r1jk
activity absent : 2jk ⫽
20k⫹r2jk
time : 3jk ⫽
30k⫹r3jk
Person-level: activity present : 10k ⫽␥
100 ⫹u10k
activity absent : 20k ⫽␥
200 ⫹u20k
time : 30k ⫽␥
300 ⫹u30k
Participants were more likely to feel nostalgic when they were
eating (␥⫽2.35), with friends (␥⫽2.30), and with family (␥⫽
2.64) than when they were not eating (␥⫽2.23), not with friends
(␥⫽2.22), and not with family (␥⫽2.21),
2
(1) ⫽4.50, p⬍.05;
2
(1) ⫽2.89, p⫽.08;
2
(1) ⫽7.94, p⬍.01, respectively. They
were less likely to feel nostalgic when they were at school (␥⫽
2.13), working/studying (␥⫽2.16), or with coworkers/classmates
(␥⫽2.04) than when they were not at school (␥⫽2.28), not
working/studying (␥⫽2.29), and not with coworkers/classmates
(␥⫽2.29),
2
(1) ⫽14.75, p⬍.001,
2
(1) ⫽6.78, p⬍.01;
2
(1) ⫽21.15, p⬍.001, respectively. All other contrasts were not
significant (ps⬎.25).
Relationships between momentary nostalgia and well-being.
Next, we examined the within-person relationships between mo-
mentary states of nostalgia and meaning in life, optimism, and
affect. Nostalgia was entered group-mean centered as a Level 1
predictor to account for any individual differences in nostalgia, and
each of the other variables were entered separately as outcome
measures. A time variable representing the occasion of measure-
ment was also entered group-mean centered to control for mean
level changes in the outcome within each day.
Momentary level : yijk(well-being) ⫽
0jk ⫹
1jk(nostalgia)
⫹
2jk(time) ⫹eijk
Day level: intercept : 0jk ⫽
00k⫹r0jk
nostalgia : 1jk ⫽
10k⫹r1jk
time : 2jk ⫽
20k⫹r2jk
Person-level: intercept : 00k ⫽␥
000 ⫹u00k
nostalgia : 10k ⫽␥
100 ⫹u10k
time : 20k ⫽␥
200 ⫹u20k
As can be seen in Table 5, nostalgia was positively related to
ND but was not significantly related to any of the other affect
variables, meaning in life, or optimism. That is, when participants
felt nostalgic, they were also likely to feel depressed and sad.
Although nonsignificant results do not mean that no effect
exists, it is possible to compare the strengths of the relationships
between (a) nostalgia and ND and (b) nostalgia and other well-
being variables. Doing so would provide more conclusive evidence
that the main relationship worth paying attention to is the relation-
ship between nostalgia and ND. Stated in other words, a demon-
stration that certain relationships are significant while others are
not significant provides some useful information. Demonstrating
that the significant relationship with ND is significantly stronger
than the relationships with other variables strengthens the argu-
ment that nostalgia is more likely to covary with momentary
negative states than positive ones.
To compare the strengths of these relationships, we “stacked the
data” by creating an item level file in which a response variable
alternated between ND and one of the other well-being variables.
A similar technique was described by Bauer, Preacher, and Gil
(2006) to compare direct and indirect effects simultaneously in
multilevel mediation analyses. In our models, items were nested
within moments, moments were nested within days, and days were
nested within persons in a four-level model. Dummy codes at
Level 1 for ND and the other respective well-being variable were
entered uncentered, and the Level 1 intercept was dropped. Nos-
talgia was entered group-mean centered at Level 2, and the coef-
ficient between nostalgia and ND was constrained to the coeffi-
cient between nostalgia and the other well-being construct. The
strength of the relationship between nostalgia and ND was stronger
than the relationships between nostalgia and meaning in life,
2
(1) ⫽7.44, p⬍.01; optimism,
2
(1) ⫽5.43, p⬍.05; PA,
2
(1) ⫽8.77, p⬍.01; and PD,
2
(1) ⫽13.69, p⬍.001. In
summary, the positive relationships between nostalgia and mean-
ing in life, optimism, and PA were not only small and nonsignif-
icant; they were significantly weaker than the relationship between
nostalgia and ND.
Lagged analyses. Finally, to examine any short-term effects
that nostalgia may have on well-being, we ran lagged analyses. In
such models, the amount of time between measurements are as-
sumed to be roughly equal, an assumption that is easily met in
daily diary studies but not in EMA studies that intentionally
schedule notifications at random times. Therefore, we created
3
Time occasion coefficients included positive and negative values
(ranging from b⫽⫺.0004, t⫽4.35, p⬍.001, to b⫽.0006, t⫽4.40, p⬍
.001), but inclusion of the time occasion coefficient did not meaningfully
change the fixed effects of primary interest (the largest change of a fixed
effect was from
2
(1) ⫽17.33, p⬍.001, to
2
(1) ⫽21.15, p⬍.001).
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339
NOSTALGIA AND WELL-BEING
subsets of the data that included responses recorded within certain
similar amounts of time. These subsets included responses within
90, 120, and 180 min of a previous response, as well as responses
between 0 and 59 min, between 60 and 119, and between 120 and
179 min of a previous response. Doing so obviously lowered the
number of observations which lowers statistical power and repre-
sentativeness of the time points. Therefore, following the recom-
mendations of Bolger, Stadler, and Laurenceau (2012), we con-
ducted power analyses using MPlus V8 (Muthén & Muthén, 2017)
by running simulations based on the parameters obtained from the
same-moment within-person relationships presented above. As-
suming an estimated within-person correlation of r⫽.30 (a
medium effect size by standard conventions), only the time win-
dows of 0 –120 and 0 –180 following a previous response yielded
power estimates close to or above the recommended value of .80
(.77 and .81, respectively). Hence, these time frames were used in
the analyses.
The lagged analysis models were created similarly to the ones in
Study 3. In the models with responses that occurred within 120
min of the previous response (n⫽1,467), there were no significant
relationships between nostalgia and meaning in life, optimism, or
any affect measure (all ts⬍1.47, ps⬎.14). In the models with
responses that occurred within 180 min of the previous response
(n⫽1,965), nostalgia at time n– 1 was positively related to PA
at time n,␥⫽.10, t⫽2.58, p⫽.01, and was negatively related
(marginally) to PD at time n, ␥⫽⫺.08, t⫽1.85, p⫽.065. All
other lagged relationships were not significant (all ts⬍1.43, ps⬎
.15). Potential third variable critiques aside, this suggests that
nostalgia could increase feelings of excitement and enthusiasm up
until roughly 3 h later, but it also decreases feelings of calm and
relaxation during this same time window.
Discussion
Nostalgia varied considerably from moment to moment during
the course of the day. People reported feeling nostalgic when they
were eating, with friends, and with family, and they reported
feeling less nostalgic when they were at school, working/studying,
or with coworkers/classmates. Critical to our main hypothesis,
people were likely to feel depressed and sad when they felt
nostalgic. Momentary nostalgia did not covary significantly with
positive affect, meaning in life, or optimism. Lagged relationships
were mostly nonsignificant with the exception that people were
likely to feel greater PA and lower PD up to 3 h later. In contrast
to experimental studies that showed momentary positive effects of
recall-induced nostalgia on well-being, nostalgia was negatively
related to concurrent well-being when measured in ecologically
valid contexts during the course of the day.
Study 5: Comparing Recalled and Daily
Nostalgic Events
The results from our diary and ecological momentary assess-
ment studies showed that nostalgia was negatively related to
well-being, whereas many experimental studies showed that nos-
talgia has a positive effect on well-being. To address this discrep-
ancy, we ran a study in which participants wrote about their most
nostalgic experience (similar to the Event Reflection Task) and
their everyday experiences that made them feel nostalgic in daily
life. As discussed in the beginning, people are likely to view their
most nostalgic experiences more positively than everyday experi-
ences of nostalgia. By definition, the “most” nostalgic experiences
are likely to be more extreme, more meaningful, and more mem-
orable. They are also more distant in time and their representation
is, therefore, likely to be more stylized and stripped of tangential
details than representations of very recent events (Trope & Liber-
man, 2010). Moreover, negative affect associated with past events
fades faster than positive affect (Ritchie et al., 2006;Walker et al.,
1997), increasing the likelihood that any mixed feelings that may
have been experienced concurrently are lost in later reconstruc-
tions. Each of these differences predicts that studies based on
recalling one’s most nostalgic experience should arrive at a more
positive picture of nostalgia’s relationship with well-being than
studies based on more recent and mundane experiences of nostal-
gia in everyday life.
To test this hypothesis, we asked the same participants to
complete the Event Reflection Task of Sedikides and colleagues
(Sedikides et al., 2015;Wildschut et al., 2006) and a 1-week daily
diary study, in counterbalanced order. This allows us to assess how
ratings of positivity, negativity, meaning in life, and self-esteem
differ between the most nostalgic experience that participants’
recall when asked to do so and the ordinary experiences of nos-
talgia that they record in a daily diary. In addition to analyses of
participants’ own ratings, we conducted content analyses to deter-
mine whether the topics described in the texts differed across
recalled experiences and daily experiences.
Method
Participants and procedure. This study was approved by the
Institutional Review Board at the University of Southern Califor-
nia under the ID UP-18 – 00183 (Nostalgia writing and diary
experiment) and preregistered at aspredicted.org under ID #9565
(https://aspredicted.org/4ic4c.pdf). Participants were 81 (M
age
⫽
20.31, SD ⫽1.73; 81.5% female; 43.2%) undergraduate students
from the same university as the preceding studies and received
course research credit. All participants completed the Event Re-
flection Task (Sedikides et al., 2015;Wildschut et al., 2006) and a
1-week daily diary study. They were randomly assigned to com-
plete either the Event Reflection Task first (n⫽43) or the diary
study first (n⫽38). Two days before the first daily questionnaire
was administered, all participants received an e-mail with a Qual-
trics link that included either the Event Reflection Task and a few
demographic questions or demographic questions only. The
1-week diary study procedure was identical to the procedure in
Study 3. Two days after the final diary questionnaire was distrib-
uted, all participants received another e-mail with a link to a
questionnaire that contained either the Event Reflection Task and
a few demographic questions or the demographic questions only.
All participants completed the Event Reflection Task only once.
Data cleaning was conducted in a similar manner as Study 3.
Responses that were completed after 10:00 a.m., duplicate re-
sponses, and responses that failed to correctly answer an instructed
response item were eliminated from final analyses. Participants
who completed less than three valid daily questionnaires were also
eliminated. Of the initial 535 daily questionnaires, 484 were re-
tained for final analyses (90.47%); 81 of the initial 90 (90.0%)
participants remained as well. They completed an average of 5.98
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340 NEWMAN, SACHS, STONE, AND SCHWARZ
of the seven possible daily questionnaires (SD ⫽1.11, median ⫽
6, minimum ⫽3).
Measures. The Event Reflection Task materials were copied
from Sedikides et al. (2015; initially created by Wildschut et al.,
2006). Participants were shown a definition of nostalgia and were
then asked to think of a past event that makes them feel most
nostalgic. They were asked to write four keywords relevant to this
nostalgic event and were then asked to describe the experience and
how it made them feel in a text box. On the following screen, they
were asked, “How positive was this experience for you?” and
“How negative was this experience for you?” on 7-point scales
(1 ⫽not at all positive,7⫽very positive;1⫽not at all negative,
7⫽very negative, respectively). Next, meaning in life, self-
esteem, and nostalgia were measured as states with items that were
slightly reworded from the daily items from Study 3. For example,
meaning in life items were, “How meaningful do you feel your life
is right now?” and “How much do you feel your life has purpose
right now?” A few demographic questions followed.
The daily questionnaires included questions about daily events,
affect, nostalgia, meaning in life, self-esteem, satisfaction with life,
and the past, present, and future that were same as Study 3.
Participants who reported some level of nostalgia (by endorsing a
value greater than “not at all” for any of the four items) were asked
to think about the experience that made them feel nostalgic today.
They were asked to write down four keywords relevant to this
nostalgic event, and on the next page they were asked to describe
the experience and how it made them feel today. These instructions
were the same as those from the Event Reflection Task but
reworded to make sense for the daily nature of the questionnaire.
If the participant reported feeling not at all nostalgic for all four
items, they were asked to think about an ordinary experience
today. Similarly, they were asked to write down four keywords
relevant to the ordinary event, and on the next page they were
asked to describe the experience and how it made them feel today.
Similar to the Event Reflection Task questionnaire, participants
were asked how positive and negative this experience was to them
with the exact same wording and response scale.
Results
Event reflection task and diary comparisons. Of interest is
whether the same person reports differential subjective experi-
ences after thinking about a past event that made them feel most
nostalgic (the wording of the ERT instructions) than after describ-
ing a recent everyday event for which they indicated nostalgic
feelings. To address this issue, we first compared the mean ratings,
within-individuals, of nostalgia, positivity, negativity, meaning in
life, and self-esteem between the Event Reflection Task and daily
reports. Because daily reports were nested within individuals, we
used multilevel modeling. Each daily score was subtracted from
that specific individual’s respective ERT score to create a new
difference score variable. This difference score variable was en-
tered as the outcome variable in an unconditional model (i.e., no
predictors at Levels 1 or 2). The intercept coefficient provides an
estimate of the difference between the ERT score and the average
daily scores while taking the nested data structure into account.
Average ERT and daily scores aggregated across conditions
(completing the ERT portion before vs. after completing the diary
portion) are presented on the left side of Table 6 and statistical
comparisons of the means obtained from the intercept coefficients
are presented on the right side of Table 6. Average daily reports
come from unconditional models. Interaction effects were tested
by adding a dummy-coded predictor uncentered at Level 2 to
determine whether the condition (order of completing ERT and
diaries) influenced the difference between ERT and daily scores.
Interaction coefficients were not significant with the exception of
the effect for nostalgia between ERT and daily nostalgia, b⫽.94,
t⫽2.81, p⬍.01, and marginally for self-esteem between ERT
nostalgia and ordinary reports, b⫽⫺.52, t⫽1.81, p⫽.08. Main
effects within each group were significant and in the same direc-
tion, so we collapsed across conditions.
Consistent with our hypothesis, participants reported higher
nostalgia, positivity, and meaning in life and lower negativity
during the ERT than during daily nostalgic reports. Self-esteem
levels did not differ significantly, however. Daily positivity, neg-
ativity, meaning in life, and self-esteem scores were not signifi-
cantly different between daily nostalgia and daily ordinary expe-
Table 6
Averages of Event Reflection Task and Diary Ratings, and Comparisons of the Averages in Study 5
Variable
Averages
ERT vs. nostalgic
days
ERT vs. ordinary
days
Nostalgic days vs.
ordinary days
ERT
(n⫽81)
Nostalgic days
(n⫽278)
Ordinary days
(n⫽206) btbtbt
Nostalgia 4.61 3.14 1.00 1.57 9.11
ⴱⴱⴱ
Positivity 5.95 5.02 4.81 .92 4.53
ⴱⴱⴱ
1.21 5.18
ⴱⴱⴱ
.23 1.26
Negativity 1.99 2.47 2.49 ⫺.42 2.21
ⴱ
⫺.63 3.34
ⴱⴱ
⫺.06 ⬍1
Meaning in life 5.40 4.79 4.62 .61 4.66
ⴱⴱⴱ
.87 6.28
ⴱⴱⴱ
.16 1.44
Self-esteem 5.44 5.25 5.32 .11 ⬍1 .22 1.51 ⫺.07 ⬍1
RA longing for the past .34 .27 .09 .07 3.84
ⴱⴱⴱ
.25 16.96
ⴱⴱⴱ
.18 16.51
ⴱⴱⴱ
RA positive affect .27 .22 .14 .06 2.98
ⴱⴱ
.13 7.38
ⴱⴱⴱ
.08 7.03
ⴱⴱⴱ
RA negative affect .08 .07 .08 .01 ⬍1⫺.00 ⬍1⫺.01 1.36
Note. ERT ⫽Event Reflection Task; RA ⫽research assistant coding. Nostalgic days refer to days when participants reported a daily nostalgic score
greater than 1. Ordinary days refer to days when they reported nostalgic scores of 1 (not at all). Nostalgia scores on ordinary days had no variance so those
models did not converge, nor were they necessary.
†
p⬍.10.
ⴱ
p⬍.05.
ⴱⴱ
p⬍.01.
ⴱⴱⴱ
p⬍.001.
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341
NOSTALGIA AND WELL-BEING
riences. In short, daily nostalgic experiences were no more or less
positive than ordinary daily experiences but were less positive and
more negative than recalled nostalgic experiences under ERT
instructions.
Content coding. To shed more light on these differences,
research assistants who were blind to the purpose of the study
provided content coding of each written text. Drawing on a pre-
vious content analysis by Hepper and colleagues (Hepper et al.,
2012,2014), we used 35 categories of nostalgia that represent
associations people have with nostalgia. Two research assistants
reported whether each of the 35 categories was present in the text
(1 ⫽present, 0 ⫽absent). To simplify the analyses, we organized
the 35 categories into three groups according to factor analyses
performed by Hepper et al. (2014): longing for the past (e.g.,
longing/yearning, fond memories), positive affect (e.g., happiness,
comfort/warmth), and negative affect (e.g., sadness/depressed,
pain/anxiety). A score of .40, for example, indicates that 40% of
the categories in that particular group were present in those written
texts. Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) of coders’ ERT
ratings were reasonably high (.71, .45, and .72, for longing for the
past, positive affect, and negative affect, respectively), as were the
reliabilities of the coders’ daily ratings (.64, .51, and .66 for
longing for the past, positive affect, and negative affect, respec-
tively), so we aggregated across coders’ ratings.
Consistent with the subjective reports, participants’ descriptions
of ERT nostalgic experiences contained higher percentages of
material categorized as longing for the past and positive affect than
their descriptions of daily nostalgic experiences (see bottom of
Table 6). There were no significant differences in negative affect.
Discussion
Given the discrepancies between the findings of previous ex-
perimental studies and our diary (Study 3) and EMA (Study 4)
studies, Study 5 assessed how the event that people recall when
asked to describe the most nostalgic experience they can remember
compares with the, presumably more ordinary, events people recall
in daily diaries. Not surprisingly, the daily nostalgic events dif-
fered from the most nostalgic experiences people could remember:
what the same participants recorded in their daily diaries was less
positive and more negative than what they recalled about the most
nostalgic experience they could remember. This suggests that the
positive effects of nostalgia on well-being observed in experiments
(Sedikides et al., 2015) can be attributed in part to the highly
positive nature of the recalled nostalgic experiences. In daily life,
nostalgia seems more mundane, less intense, and less beneficial.
General Discussion
The purpose of these five studies was to measure nostalgia in
ecologically valid contexts to understand how nostalgia relates to
daily experiences, feelings, and thoughts. To accomplish this, we
first created and validated a trait-version of the Personal Inventory
of Nostalgic Experiences scale. When assessed as a trait measure
(i.e., between-persons), nostalgia-prone people generally reported
lower well-being than people who were less nostalgia-prone. We
found that nostalgia was positively related to negative affect,
regret, and depression; nostalgia was negatively related to satis-
faction with life, presence of meaning in life, and self-esteem.
Nostalgia-prone individuals also reported relatively high levels of
avoidance motivation, neuroticism, thinking about the past in a
negative manner, and thinking about the present in a fatalistic
manner. Not all relationships were negative, however; nostalgia
was positively related to thinking of the past in positive ways,
thinking of the present in hedonic ways, and empathy. Thus,
although most associations involving nostalgia and well-being
were negative, we found some support for the notion that nostalgia
is a mixed emotion as suggested by previous findings (e.g.,
Sedikides et al., 2015).
When assessed repeatedly in daily life, there was considerable
within-person variation in nostalgic states, similar to other mea-
sures of affect. At a within-person level of analysis, people were
more likely to feel nostalgic on days that included negative social
and achievement events than on days that included positive social
and achievement events. Nostalgia was also negatively related to
daily and momentary states of well-being, and these relationships
were not explained by the occurrence of daily negative events.
Lagged analyses also showed that nostalgia was either negatively
related, not significantly related, or both positively and negatively
related to well-being at a later moment in time or on the following
day.
Although most within-person analyses showed that nostalgia
was negatively related to well-being and daily events, it is impor-
tant to note a few positive or neutral relationships. People were
more likely to feel nostalgic on days when they helped others, felt
inspired, were engaged in social media, heard songs they had not
heard in a long time, or communicated in some manner with an old
friend/acquaintance, and searched for meaning in life. At a mo-
mentary level, people were more likely to feel nostalgic when they
were eating and with friends and family. In combination, the
results from between- and within-person levels of analysis indicate
that nostalgia is a mixed emotion, albeit one that is more strongly
and consistently associated with negative than with positive affect.
This conclusion, based on assessments of everyday nostalgic
experiences in ecologically valid contexts, is opposite to the con-
clusions drawn from experimental studies that induced nostalgia
through recall tasks (Sedikides & Wildschut, 2018;Sedikides et
al., 2015). One likely reason for this discrepancy is that the
experimental studies encouraged the recall of extreme nostalgic
experiences, which are more positive and less negative than the
ordinary experiences of nostalgia in everyday life, as indicated by
the within-person comparisons of Study 5. Similarly, studies that
used preselected stimuli to induce nostalgia have relied mostly on
positive stimuli (e.g., Barrett et al., 2010;Routledge et al., 2011),
which may highlight the positive aspects of nostalgia. Hence, the
conclusion that nostalgia is predominantly positive, and related to
positive well-being outcomes (Sedikides et al., 2015), may be
limited to positive instances of nostalgia, which these procedures
selectively privilege. The observation does not hold up with more
representative samples of everyday nostalgic experiences captured
with EMA (Study 4) or daily diaries (Studies 3 and 5): daily
experiences that trigger nostalgic feelings are less positive than the
experimental literature suggests and relate negatively (or less pos-
itively) to well-being.
In combination, this suggests that the affect and well-being
outcomes associated with nostalgia may depend on the nostalgia
eliciting event: positively colored nostalgic experiences are bene-
ficial, but many, if not most, moments of nostalgia in everyday life
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342 NEWMAN, SACHS, STONE, AND SCHWARZ
have a more negative flavor. If so, deliberately engaging in the
recollection of extremely nostalgic moments may be beneficial,
paralleling the results of experiments that prompt such deliberative
recollections (e.g., Routledge et al., 2011;Wildschut et al., 2006).
Reliving nostalgic moments may enhance well-being and buffer
against adverse effects of negative experiences as suggested by
experimental findings (e.g., Zhou et al., 2008). On the other hand,
involuntarily experiencing nostalgia that is elicited by situational
cues may be predominantly negative, as indicated by the EMA
(Study 4) and diary (Studies 3 and 5) findings.
The proposed distinction between the deliberate and involuntary
experience of nostalgia also received some support when nostalgia
was measured as an individual difference (Study 2). The SNS
contains several items that reflect an active, nostalgia seeking
experience (e.g., “Generally speaking, how often do you bring to
mind nostalgic experiences?”), whereas the PINE does not. Paral-
leling the differences between experimental studies and EMA and
diary studies, the SNS is positively associated with well-being,
whereas the PINE is negatively associated with well-being. In
addition, the SNS was also positively associated with approach
motivation, whereas the PINE was not significantly related to
approach motivation. These observations are consistent with the
notion that actively pursuing nostalgia may have positive effects
on well-being, whereas involuntarily experiencing nostalgia be-
cause of contextual influences may have negative effects on well-
being. Future research may fruitfully test these conjectures.
Taking a step back, it is worth remembering Joe McGrath’s
(1982, p. 70) admonition that “all research strategies and methods
are seriously flawed.” Reliance on multiple methodologies can
attenuate the problem by providing multiple complementary per-
spectives. Experiments excel at addressing what can occur (e.g.,
“Can nostalgia increase meaning in life?”) and at testing a hypoth-
esized underlying process. In contrast, diary and EMA techniques
excel at addressing what typically does occur in real life (e.g., “Do
people believe their lives are meaningful when they feel nostal-
gic?”), but provide limited insight into causality. Both types of
questions are important and diverging observations enrich our
understanding of a phenomenon, raising new questions for further
testing.
Limitations and Future Directions
No set of studies comes without limitations. As is usually the
case in nostalgia research, participants were undergraduate stu-
dents in the United States, which limits generalizations across age
groups but facilitates comparison with the large bulk of studies
conducted with undergraduate students in the United States and the
United Kingdom.
Nevertheless, in future research on nostalgia, several age-related
topics would be worth considering. Do older adults feel nostalgic
as often and as intensely as younger adults? Is the relationship
between nostalgia and well-being consistent across age groups or
does it vary? What types of daily experiences elicit feelings of
nostalgia among people of various ages? Recent findings indicate
that older adults are more likely to experience mixed emotions
more broadly (Schneider & Stone, 2015), which might suggest that
older adults would also feel nostalgic more often than younger
adults. Furthermore, older adults tend to experience and recall
positive emotions and experiences more than negative emotions
and experiences (Mather & Carstensen, 2005). This suggests that
when older adults feel nostalgic, their recollections might be more
positive than typical nostalgic recollections. Future research is
needed to test such possibilities.
Relatedly, the time points that we randomly sampled were
presumably representative of this particular period of our partici-
pants’ lives, namely during the college years in young adulthood.
One could envision a sampling design in which time periods (e.g.,
young adulthood, early parenthood, retirement, etc.) were ran-
domly sampled from the larger population of time periods of
people’s lives. Although practically challenging, such a longitudi-
nal design would allow researchers to learn more about which
periods of life people might be likely to experience nostalgia, such
as the transition from high school to college or from the end of a
career to retirement.
A similar limitation is that participants were only sampled from
the United States which restrains generalizability across cultures.
Although people in many countries conceptualize nostalgia in
similar ways (Hepper et al., 2014), the types of daily experiences
associated with daily states of nostalgia may vary across cultures.
The implementation of EMA studies on nostalgia in different
countries or cultures could shed light on this topic.
The same-day (Study 3) and same-moment (Study 4) within-
person relationships between nostalgia and daily events and well-
being cannot provide causal evidence for the direction of the
effects. For example, negative social events, such as being made
fun of by others, might lead people to feel depressed, which could
lead them to seek nostalgic memories or feelings. Although we ran
1-day lagged analyses in the diary study, some effects of nostalgia
might not last until the following day. Alternatively, certain daily
experiences or even repeated experiences might only affect well-
being and/or nostalgia several days or weeks later. Longitudinal
studies or other EMA techniques with different reporting sched-
ules would be needed to test such possibilities.
An additional avenue for future research concerns the relation-
ship between nostalgia and daily events that have not been con-
sidered in previous research, such as negative achievement-
oriented events, such as failing an exam. Several studies have
examined the positive social connectedness aspect of nostalgia
(Hepper et al., 2012;Reid, Green, Wildschut, & Sedikides, 2015;
Wildschut et al., 2006), but have not considered how nostalgia may
be related to other (and predominantly negative) aspects of daily
life. These negative daily experiences could be used in experimen-
tal manipulations to determine the consequences of nostalgic feel-
ings that are elicited from negative stimuli.
Conclusion
In summary, we find that nostalgia is a mixed emotion that
varies both between and within individuals. Nostalgia-prone indi-
viduals tend to report lower well-being and are characterized by
several negative traits, such as neuroticism and avoidance motiva-
tion, although they also report greater empathy. In daily life,
people are more likely to feel nostalgic on days when negative
social and achievement events occur than when positive events
occur, although they are also more likely to help others and feel
inspired when they feel nostalgic. Daily and momentary nostalgic
states are consistently related to increased negative affect and are
not related to concurrent positive affect. Taken together, these
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343
NOSTALGIA AND WELL-BEING
findings diverge from experiments in which participants are asked
to recall their “most” nostalgic experience, which typically in-
creases well-being. Daily states of nostalgia are more negative,
less positive and intense, and less beneficial for well-being than
recalled extreme nostalgic experiences. Our findings indicate that
nostalgia should be considered a mixed emotion that is more likely
to covary with negative states than positive ones.
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346 NEWMAN, SACHS, STONE, AND SCHWARZ
Appendix
Personal Inventory of Nostalgic Experiences (PINE) Scale
Item number Statement
1 How nostalgic do you feel?
2 To what extent do you feel sentimental for the past?
3 How much do you feel a wistful affection for the past?
4 To what extent do you feel a longing to return to a former time in your life?
Received December 27, 2017
Revision received November 26, 2018
Accepted December 1, 2018 䡲
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