Distress prospectively predicts higher nostalgia, and nostalgia prospectively predicts lower distress
Distress prospectively predicts higher nostalgia, and nostalgia prospectively predicts lower distress
Objective: we were concerned with the relation between distress and nostalgia. At the state level, extensive research has established that momentary nostalgia is evoked by (experimentally manipulated) distress. However, at the trait level, the directionality of this relation is unclear. We conducted a longitudinal study to clarify the directional relation between these two constructs.
Method: we surveyed first-year university students (N = 3,167) twice across six months. We assessed nostalgia, psychological distress (depression) and physical distress (somatization) at both timepoints. We also assessed Big Five personality at the first timepoint.
Results: initial distress prospectively predicted increased nostalgia, and initial nostalgia prospectively predicted reduced distress, six months later and independently of the Big Five.
Conclusions: habitual nostalgia follows rather than precedes naturalistically occurring distress, and serves to relieve it.
Big Five personality, nostalgia, physical distress, psychological distress
1478-1492
Wang, Yuqi
c0d988e4-8780-4b84-83ab-d0a28aee51dd
Sedikides, Constantine
9d45e66d-75bb-44de-87d7-21fd553812c2
Wildschut, Tim
4452a61d-1649-4c4a-bb1d-154ec446ff81
Yang, Ying
34278307-6a56-4302-a3e5-e053fe3bcd01
Cai, Huajian
64b25da2-c206-4457-971a-82ea4d8cbf5e
December 2023
Wang, Yuqi
c0d988e4-8780-4b84-83ab-d0a28aee51dd
Sedikides, Constantine
9d45e66d-75bb-44de-87d7-21fd553812c2
Wildschut, Tim
4452a61d-1649-4c4a-bb1d-154ec446ff81
Yang, Ying
34278307-6a56-4302-a3e5-e053fe3bcd01
Cai, Huajian
64b25da2-c206-4457-971a-82ea4d8cbf5e
Wang, Yuqi, Sedikides, Constantine, Wildschut, Tim, Yang, Ying and Cai, Huajian
(2023)
Distress prospectively predicts higher nostalgia, and nostalgia prospectively predicts lower distress.
Journal of Personality, 91 (6), .
(doi:10.1111/jopy.12824).
Abstract
Objective: we were concerned with the relation between distress and nostalgia. At the state level, extensive research has established that momentary nostalgia is evoked by (experimentally manipulated) distress. However, at the trait level, the directionality of this relation is unclear. We conducted a longitudinal study to clarify the directional relation between these two constructs.
Method: we surveyed first-year university students (N = 3,167) twice across six months. We assessed nostalgia, psychological distress (depression) and physical distress (somatization) at both timepoints. We also assessed Big Five personality at the first timepoint.
Results: initial distress prospectively predicted increased nostalgia, and initial nostalgia prospectively predicted reduced distress, six months later and independently of the Big Five.
Conclusions: habitual nostalgia follows rather than precedes naturalistically occurring distress, and serves to relieve it.
Text
Wang et al., 2023, Journal of Personality
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Accepted/In Press date: 16 February 2023
e-pub ahead of print date: 19 February 2023
Published date: December 2023
Additional Information:
Funding Information:
We received funding from the Major Program of National Social Science Foundation of China (17ZDA324) and the Scientific Foundation of Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (E2CX3935CX). The funder had no role in the study design, collection, data analysis or interpretation, write‐up of the manuscript, or the decision to submit the manuscript for publication.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Wiley Periodicals LLC.
Keywords:
Big Five personality, nostalgia, physical distress, psychological distress
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 475468
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/475468
ISSN: 0022-3506
PURE UUID: aed4b9d5-c46d-4671-ba26-08f3f729de3e
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Date deposited: 20 Mar 2023 17:38
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 02:53
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Contributors
Author:
Yuqi Wang
Author:
Ying Yang
Author:
Huajian Cai
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