Shielding against interpersonal threat in later life: The regulatory function of nostalgia among older adults

Nostalgia, a sentimental longing for the past, is a resource for regulating psychological distress. According to socioemotional selectivity theory (Carstensen, 2006), aging is associated with a shift toward prioritizing emotionally meaningful goals. Integrating these views, we proposed that nostalgia's social affordances would make it a particularly potent resource for older adults when confronting interpersonal threats. We examined this hypothesis in two studies: an experience-sampling study and an experiment. In Study 1 (N = 115, age 18-80 years), older as compared to younger adults reported stronger nostalgic emotions following daily interpersonal negative emotions. In Study 2 (N = 189, age 21-78 years), older adults reported greater nostalgic engagement in response to social exclusion induced by the Cyberball game than younger adults. Furthermore, after experiencing nostalgia, compared to younger adults, older adults reported increased social engagement in everyday life (Study 1) and greater recovery of a sense of belonging from social exclusion (Study 2), demonstrating greater benefits from nostalgia. Importantly, these effects were unique to nostalgia and remained significant after controlling for general positive emotions. These findings suggest that nostalgia may be an adaptive resource for older adults. It is recruited specifically to counteract social threats and fulfills a need for emotional connectedness in later life, thereby functioning as a goal-congruent resource for healthy aging. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).