Combating Loneliness With Nostalgia: Nostalgic Feelings Attenuate Negative Thoughts and Motivations Associated With Loneliness.

Loneliness is difficult to overcome, in part because it is associated with negative social cognitions and social motivations. We argue that nostalgia, a positive emotional experience that involves reflecting on cherished memories, is a psychological resource that regulates these maladaptive intrapsychic tendencies associated with loneliness. We tested this hypothesis across 4 studies.

Time capsule: Nostalgia shields psychological wellbeing from limited time horizons.

Nostalgia is a bittersweet-albeit predominantly positive-self-relevant and social emotion that arises from reflecting on fond and meaningful autobiographical memories. Nostalgia might facilitate successful aging by serving as a socioemotional selectivity strategy in the face of limited time horizons. Four studies tested the role of nostalgia in maintaining psychological wellbeing across the adult life span and across differing time perspectives.

Experimentally induced nostalgia reduces the amplitude of the event-related negativity.

To initiate a neuroscientific approach to the science of nostalgia, we conducted an experiment testing distinct hypotheses involving the effects of nostalgia on the event-related negativity (ERN). Based on the view of the ERN as an index of action monitoring and research suggesting a negative impact of loneliness on cognitive control, we predicted that high loneliness would be associated with lower neural (ERN amplitude) and cognitive (post-error accuracy) indices of cognitive control. We further predicted that nostalgia would mitigate these effects based on past research indicating nostalgia counteracts loneliness.

Ebola salience, death-thought accessibility, and worldview defense: A terror management theory perspective.

According to terror management theory, individuals defend their cultural beliefs following mortality salience. The current research examined whether naturally occurring instances of death (i.e.

The existential cost of economic insecurity: Threatened financial security undercuts meaning.

Financial security (i.e., a person's sense that they can afford the things they need now and in the foreseeable future) contributes to psychological health and well-being.

Further Exploring the Link Between Religion and Existential Health: The Effects of Religiosity and Trait Differences in Mentalizing on Indicators of Meaning in Life.

Religiosity contributes to perceptions of meaning. One of the cognitive foundations for religious belief is the capacity to mentalize the thoughts, emotions, and intentions of others (Theory of Mind). We examined how religiosity and trait differences in mentalizing interact to influence meaning.

Nostalgia fosters self-continuity: Uncovering the mechanism (social connectedness) and consequence (eudaimonic well-being).

Nostalgia, a sentimental longing for one's past, is an emotion that arises from self-relevant and social memories. Nostalgia functions, in part, to foster self-continuity, that is, a sense of connection between one's past and one's present. This article examined, in 6 experiments, how nostalgia fosters self-continuity and the implications of that process for well-being.

Looking back to move forward: Nostalgia as a psychological resource for promoting relationship goals and overcoming relationship challenges.

Previous research has shown that nostalgia is a highly social emotion that provides a sense of social connectedness. In the present research, we tested a social motivational function of nostalgia. Specifically, across 7 studies we found converging evidence that nostalgia mobilizes social goals.

Miraculous Meaning: Threatened Meaning Increases Belief in Miracles.

For many, religious belief is a source of meaning and a resource for coping with life stressors that have the potential to undercut meaning. In the present study, we sought to further probe the connection between religion and meaning by focusing on the potential for threatened meaning to inspire belief in miraculous testimonials. We threatened meaning with a meaninglessness manipulation and then had participants read testimonials in which people described miraculous experiences involving supernatural agents and rate the extent to which they believed these testimonials to be credible and true.

Nostalgia-Evoked Inspiration: Mediating Mechanisms and Motivational Implications.

Six studies examined the nostalgia-inspiration link and its motivational implications. In Study 1, nostalgia proneness was positively associated with inspiration frequency and intensity. In Studies 2 and 3, the recollection of nostalgic (vs.

The mnemonic mover: nostalgia regulates avoidance and approach motivation.

In light of its role in maintaining psychological equanimity, we proposed that nostalgia--a self-relevant, social, and predominantly positive emotion--regulates avoidance and approach motivation. We advanced a model in which (a) avoidance motivation triggers nostalgia and (b) nostalgia, in turn, increases approach motivation. As a result, nostalgia counteracts the negative impact of avoidance motivation on approach motivation.

The effects of trait self-esteem and death cognitions on worldview defense and search for meaning.

Terror management theory asserts that attaining self-esteem by adhering to the standards of meaning-providing worldviews helps manage death concerns. Research has shown that mortality salience (MS) increases worldview defense, however, there are conflicting results concerning how trait self-esteem moderates this effect. Studies 1 and 2 demonstrated that MS increases worldview defense for high, but not low, trait self-esteem individuals.

Failure causes fear: the effect of self-esteem threat on death-anxiety.

According to terror management theory (TMT; Greenberg, Pyszczynski, 1986), self-esteem protects people from anxiety associated with the knowledge of certain mortality. A number of studies provide evidence consistent with this assertion, but no studies have experimentally examined the effect of threatened self-esteem on death-anxiety. In the current study, self-esteem was manipulated and death-anxiety measured.

The power of the past: nostalgia as a meaning-making resource.

In three experiments we tested whether nostalgia bolsters meaning in life relative to two other modes of autobiographical thought: imagining a desired future experience and recalling a positive past experience. In Experiment 1 participants thought about a nostalgic or desired future experience and then completed a presence of meaning scale. Thinking about a nostalgic (compared to desired future) experience increased perceived presence of meaning.

When death is good for life: considering the positive trajectories of terror management.

Research derived from terror management theory (TMT) has shown that people's efforts to manage the awareness of death often have deleterious consequences for the individual and society. The present article takes a closer look at the conceptual foundations of TMT and considers some of the more beneficial trajectories of the terror management process. The awareness of mortality can motivate people to enhance their physical health and prioritize growth-oriented goals; live up to positive standards and beliefs; build supportive relationships and encourage the development of peaceful, charitable communities; and foster open-minded and growth-oriented behaviors.

The past makes the present meaningful: nostalgia as an existential resource.

The present research tested the proposition that nostalgia serves an existential function by bolstering a sense of meaning in life. Study 1 found that nostalgia was positively associated with a sense of meaning in life. Study 2 experimentally demonstrated that nostalgia increases a sense of meaning in life.

Adjusting to death: the effects of mortality salience and self-esteem on psychological well-being, growth motivation, and maladaptive behavior.

This research builds on terror management theory to examine the relationships among self-esteem, death cognition, and psychological adjustment. Self-esteem was measured (Studies 1-2, 4-8) or manipulated (Study 3), and thoughts of death were manipulated (Studies 1-3, 5-8) or measured (Study 4). Subsequently, satisfaction with life (Study 1), subjective vitality (Study 2), meaning in life (Studies 3-5), positive and negative affect (Studies 1, 4, 5), exploration (Study 6), state anxiety (Study 7), and social avoidance (Study 8) were assessed.

Structured terror: further exploring the effects of mortality salience and personal need for structure on worldview defense.

Previous research indicates that people respond to heightened death-related cognition with increased defense of predominant cultural beliefs (cultural worldview defense). However, recent research indicates that individual differences in personal need for structure (PNS) impact responses to threatening thoughts of death such that those high, but not low, in PNS respond to death thoughts by seeking a highly structured, clear, and coherent view of the world. Research has yet to fully consider the extent to which PNS affects the cultural worldview defenses typically exhibited after death is rendered salient.

Nostalgia as a repository of social connectedness: the role of attachment-related avoidance.

Individuals who are low (compared with high) in attachment-related avoidance rely on social bonds to regulate distress, and the authors hypothesized that nostalgia can be a repository of such social connectedness. Studies 1-3 showed a positive association between loneliness and nostalgia when attachment-related avoidance was low, but not when it was high. Study 4 revealed that low-avoidance individuals derived more social connectedness from nostalgia than did high-avoidance individuals.

Mammograms and the management of existential discomfort: threats associated with the physicality of the body and neuroticism.

The current research employs ideas from terror management theory to investigate why mammograms may be psychologically problematic. This perspective suggests that individuals, particularly those high in neuroticism, are threatened by that which reminds them of their physical and mortal nature. In Study 1, a laboratory experiment demonstrated that when concerns about mortality were primed, reminders of one's physical nature (i.

Bronze is beautiful but pale can be pretty: the effects of appearance standards and mortality salience on sun-tanning outcomes.

Objective: Using the terror management health model (J. L. Goldenberg & J.

The dynamics of death and meaning: the effects of death-relevant cognitions and personal need for structure on perceptions of meaning in life.

Do reminders of mortality increase or decrease perceptions of life's meaning? The authors propose that death-relevant thought has divergent effects on meaning perceptions depending on individuals' personal need for structure (PNS) or dispositional desire for structured knowledge. In prior research, high-PNS individuals primed with mortality-related stimuli were found to employ clearly structured conceptions of reality. Consequently, these individuals were expected to show stable or even bolstered perceptions of meaning when death thought was heightened.