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5 - Psychology and Nostalgia: Towards a Functional Approach
- Edited by Michael Hviid Jacobsen, Aalborg Universitet, Denmark
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- Book:
- Intimations of Nostalgia
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 13 May 2022
- Print publication:
- 05 November 2021, pp 110-128
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Summary
Introduction
The word ‘nostalgia’ was first coined by the Swiss physician Johannes Hofer (1688/1934). For Hofer, nostalgia was synonymous with homesickness, and he equated the two in the title of his dissertation, ‘Nostalgia, oder Heimwehe’ (‘Nostalgia, or Homesickness’). For centuries, nostalgia denoted homesickness. As recently as 1943, Willis McCann conducted what, in his words, was the first ‘systematic and controlled investigation’ of nostalgia by comparing ‘one hundred college students who were or who recently had been homesick … with 100 college students who never had been homesick while away from home’ (McCann 1943: 97). Yet, current dictionary definitions reveal that nostalgia and homesickness have acquired distinct meanings. Before we can embark on a journey through the psychological literature, then, we have to identify when nostalgia and homesickness went their separate ways. It appears that their path forked during the post-war years, as by 1954 nostalgia had become a subject of psychological theorizing in its own right, with its now familiar positive connotations. The psychoanalyst Alexander Martin (1954) proposed that nostalgia plays an essential role during recuperation and consolidation phases of development:
I … would rather think of nostalgia as a diastolic phase of the growth rhythm, which is true not only of man, but of nature as a whole. … Always after a phase of rapid development, whether it be scholastic, athletic, artistic, there is what has been referred to as a slump … On this natural return to strength, if not rejected, the individual surges forward to a still higher point of development. (Martin 1954: 103)
By conceptualizing nostalgia as a springboard for growth, Martin foreshadowed recent evidence, to be reviewed later in this chapter, that the emotion is a source of approach-oriented processes, including creativity, inspiration, risk taking and goal pursuit (Sedikides and Wildschut 2016, 2020). In the same year, the social and personality psychologist Gordon Allport (1954) published his influential The Nature of Prejudice. He proposed that nostalgia could play a role in reducing prejudice and forming bonds between individuals from different social groups:
The plan … brings together people of diverse ethnic backgrounds in a ‘neighborhood festival.’ The leader may start discussion by asking some members to tell about his memories of autumn, of holidays, or of food he enjoyed as a child.
10 - The War of the Roses: An Interdependence Analysis of Betrayal and Forgiveness
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- By Caryl E. Rusbult, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Madoka Kumashiro, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Eli J. Finkel, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Tim Wildschut, University of Southhampton
- Edited by Patricia Noller, University of Queensland, Judith A. Feeney, University of Queensland
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- Book:
- Understanding Marriage
- Published online:
- 25 July 2009
- Print publication:
- 26 September 2002, pp 251-282
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Summary
Barbara and Oliver Rose – I think you should hear their story … I won't start the clock yet. My fee is $450 an hour. When a man who makes $450 an hour wants to tell you something for free, you should listen.
–Gavin D'Amata, The War of the RosesGavin D'Amata is a divorce lawyer. With the preceding words to a prospective client, Gavin begins to recount The War of the Roses, a (sometimes hilarious) marital cautionary tale. The unfolding narrative reveals the troubled marriage of Barbara and Oliver Rose: Oliver belittles Barbara's career; Barbara neglects Oliver during a frightening health crisis; each humiliates the other, delivering impossible-to-forget attacks on the other's tastes and habits. During their marital Armageddon, Barbara and Oliver become entangled in a chandelier suspended above a hallway. The mechanism supporting the chandelier gives way, and – embraced in the arms of the chandelier – the two crash to the unyielding terazzo floor 30 feet below. With his dying breath, Oliver reaches out to touch Barbara's shoulder, offering amends and seeking forgiveness. Barbara's hand slowly rises to meet Oliver's … (perhaps, one imagines, to reciprocate Oliver's act) … and with her dying breath, Barbara flings Oliver's hand away from her.
Why is the Rose marriage interesting, from a scientific point of view? The Roses are interesting because their marital woes do not stem from the sorts of faulty communication patterns traditionally emphasized in marital research – patterns involving negative reciprocity, demand-withdraw, or coercive interaction (cf. Gottman, Coan, Carrere, & Swanson, 1998).