Why remembering good times long since passed is often more bitter than sweet
for the future. However, University of Southern California psychologist David Newman and colleagues argue that these effects may be due more to the experimental setup than to the true nature of nostalgia.
In studies using experience sampling, participants first download an app to their smartphone that pings them at random intervals throughout the duration of the study, typically a week or longer. Each time they receive a text message, the participants are asked to complete a brief survey in which they report what they are doing, thinking, and feeling at that particular moment. This method avoids memory biases that inevitably arise from later recollections of events.
One possibility is that family, friends, and food all serve as what psychologists call “retrieval cues.” These are items in the current environment that trigger memories. People can use retrieval cues intentionally, as for example when they post a to-do list on the refrigerator door. But retrieval cues can also be unintentional, as for instance when a whiff of apple pie aroma reminds you of your grandmother.
Experiments are designed to get at cause-and-effect relationships. It does this by comparing responses under different conditions. People who were first asked to recall happy memories later reported more positive emotions than did those who were asked to recall mundane memories instead. When the study is structured in this way, we can conclude that nostalgic reverie caused a boost in mood.
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