1 Self and Affect: The Case of Nostalgia

Imagine you are walking through your neighbourhood on a breezy spring afternoon and you see a child running excitedly after a ball tossed from a friend. You begin to think about your own childhood and perhaps bask in the glow of the bygone days of frivolous play and exuberance. What are the cognitive abilities that enable, and the psychological functions served by, such nostalgic reflection? More broadly, what is the social psychological significance of this emotion? In entertaining such questions, one may be surprised to learn that contemporary social psychological discourse currently offers few answers as the emotion has largely been neglected by mainstream empirical circles. The purpose of the present chapter is to provide a framework through which such questions may be addressed and present a social psychological analysis of nostalgia. We suggest that at the core of understanding nostalgia is the interplay between self and affect. As such, we will begin by covering three manifestations of this interplay. The self – and more specifically the ability to reflect back on the self – is of critical importance for nostalgic reflection and thus we will first review literature o