Nostalgic people have closer friends, better health: study

Nostalgia might be perceived as too cliche by some but people prone to it are better when dealing with their health and well-being, a new study suggests.

People who are nostalgic have more close friends and put more effort into maintaining friendships and relationships than people who are less sentimental, researchers say in the journal of Cognition and Emotion.

“People who feel nostalgic more often and value those memories are more aware of their important relationships and the need to nurture them,” lead researcher Kuan-Ju Huang said in a news release as quoted by UPI. 

“This means these friendships may be more likely to last, even as we get older and our lives, interests and responsibilities change,” Huang added.

The researchers, in background notes, said social networks play a critical role in the well-being of a person and provide psychological and cognitive benefits in old age.

The results come from three experiments involving over 1,500 people in the US and Europe, said researchers.

The first experiment was conducted on 450 undergraduate students at the University of Buffalo in New York. The participants were surveyed about their level of nostalgia and their friend circles.

Those who said they were nostalgic also said they put more effort and importance on maintaining their friendships. They also had very close friendships and relationships.

The second study looked to find this nostalgia effect among a pool of over 400 US adults.

Those who were an average age of 40 were surveyed and the participants who were found to put more work into maintaining friendships had the most close friendships.

The third experiment used data from a long-running Dutch social science survey to examine the effect of nostalgia on social networks over a seven-year time period.

The results showed that people tend to become more nostalgic as they grow older.

As for the non-nostalgic people, those with low levels had 18% fewer close relationships by the end of the seven years.

“There is evidence showing that young adults report nostalgic feelings slightly more frequently than middle-aged adults, while older adults report dramatically higher levels of nostalgia,” Huang said.

Huang added that the reasons for high levels of nostalgia in young and older adults are different.

“Life transitions during emerging adulthood, including leaving the family home and entering college or the workforce, may trigger a psychological need to find solace in nostalgia,” Huang said.

“Young adults may reminisce about their high school years or family moments when facing challenges during the transition to adulthood,” he continued. “For older adults, nostalgia is more likely to be associated with experiences about loss and feelings of a limited future.”