Nostalgia

Historical Sketch

The word nostalgia was coined in the 17th century by the Swiss physician Johannes Hofer, but references to its meaning can be traced back as far as Homer's Odyssey. It is a compound of the Greek words nostos (return) and algos (pain). The literal meaning of nostalgia is the suffering caused by a desire to return to one's place of origin. In the 17th and 18th centuries, as well as most of the 19th century, nostalgia was thought to be a neurological disease with such varied symptoms as persistent thinking of home, despondency, bouts of weeping, irregular heartbeat, and smothering sensations.

By the end of the 19th century, nostalgia came to be regarded as a psychiatric or psychosomatic disorder. Symptoms included anxiety, sadness, loss of appetite, insomnia, and fever. As the psycho-dynamic perspective gained strength in the mid-20th century, nostalgia came to be viewed as a regressive disorder reflecting the subconscious desire to return to an early stage of life. Under this influence, nostalgia was downgraded to a variant of depression rooted in incomplete mourning and an inability to cope with the challenges of adulthood, including grief and loss. In this light, it is perhaps not surprising that nostalgia was often equated with homesickness.

Nostalgia did not acquire a unique conceptual status until the latter part of the 20th century. Sociologist Fred Davis laid the groundwork for this new look on nostalgia by showing, for instance, that participants associated words such as warm, old times, childhood, and yearning more frequently with nostalgia than with homesickness, suggesting that participants could discriminate between these two concepts. Recently, nostalgia has become the topic of social-psychological inquiry focusing on three issues: the content of nostalgic experiences, the triggers of nostalgia, and the psychological functions of nostalgia. Preliminary answers to these questions highlight the link between nostalgia and interpersonal relationships.

Interpersonal Relationships and the Content of Nostalgia

Studies on the content of nostalgia have analyzed autobiographical narratives of nostalgic experiences. In one study, researchers retrieved and content-analyzed narratives published in the periodical Nostalgia. Another study followed a vivid-recall protocol in which undergraduate students wrote a detailed narrative account about a nostalgic experience, which was content-analyzed. In both studies, the narratives revealed that individuals most frequently felt nostalgic about close others (family members, old friends). Further highlighting the social aspect of nostalgia was the finding that nostalgic narratives almost exclusively featured the self in interpersonal context. Although many narratives contained descriptions of disappointments and losses (separation, death of loved ones), positive and negative aspects were often juxtaposed to create a redemption sequence—a narrative pattern that progresses from a negative to a positive life scene.

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