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Pancultural nostalgia: prototypical conceptions across cultures.
Erica G Hepper1, Tim Wildschut2, Constantine Sedikides2
1School of Psychology.
Emotion (Washington, D.C.)
|May 29, 2014
Summary
Nostalgia, a complex emotion, is understood similarly across cultures, primarily involving fond, self-relevant memories. This global study confirms nostalgia as a pancultural emotion with widespread agreement on its core features.
Area of Science:
- Psychology
- Cross-cultural psychology
- Emotion research
Background:
- Nostalgia is a complex emotion commonly experienced in the UK and USA.
- Lay conceptions often link nostalgia to fond, self-relevant, social memories.
- It is generally perceived as more pleasant than unpleasant.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate cross-cultural conceptions of nostalgia.
- To determine if the understanding of nostalgia is universal or culturally specific.
- To identify pancultural features of nostalgia.
Main Methods:
- Survey research involving 1,704 students across 18 countries on 5 continents.
- Participants rated the prototypicality of 35 features of nostalgia.
- Cluster analyses were used to examine cross-cultural patterns.
Main Results:
- High agreement was found on the rank-order of nostalgia features across cultures.
- Central features of nostalgia were consistently rated higher than peripheral ones globally.
- Factor structures of nostalgia features were consistent across most regions, with minor variations.
Conclusions:
- Nostalgia is a pancultural emotion with significant cross-cultural agreement on its core features.
- While subtle variations exist, the fundamental understanding of nostalgia is shared globally.
- The study supports a universal basis for the complex emotion of nostalgia.
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