Abstract
Nostalgia, a sentimental longing for one's past, confers important psychological benefits: positive affect, social connectedness, meaning in life, self-continuity, self-esteem, optimism, and inspiration. Is nostalgia equally beneficial in populations that have experienced a difficult upbringing? We explored boundaries of nostalgia's psychological benefits in an experiment among Gaza Strip youth (N = 416). We hypothesized additionally that resilience would catalyse the impact of nostalgia, with high-resilience participants benefiting more than low-resilience ones. Nostalgia only augmented social connectedness. As hypothesized, however, resilience emerged as a moderator. Whereas nostalgia increased positive affect and social connectedness among high-resilience individuals, it reduced positive affect, meaning in life, self-esteem, and inspiration among low-resilience ones. Social environmental hardship plausibly limits the reach of nostalgia's benefits.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | e12859 |
| Journal | British Journal of Social Psychology |
| Volume | 64 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Apr 2025 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2025 The Author(s). British Journal of Social Psychology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Psychological Society.
Keywords
- affect
- Gaza youth
- nostalgia
- psychological benefits
- resilience
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Social Psychology