A survey was designed to assess nostalgia for 20 aspects of experience as well as relative judgments of the world past, present, and future. Surveys were completed by 648 respondents, 268 males and 380 females, ranging in age from 4 to 80 years old. Split-half reliability was .78. Test-retest reliability over a 1-wk. interval on a separate sample of 50 respondents was .84. Nostalgia was related to the judgment of the past relative to the present. Gender differences were not significant, but significant differences across age groups were obtained for most items. The intensity of nostalgic sentiment varied across objects, situations, aspects of society, and people. Factor analysis suggested that nostalgia is comprised of a number of factors reflecting different spheres and levels of experience. For nostalgia, conceptualized as a multifaceted, composite construct, results were discussed with respect to four approaches--generational, developmental, personality, and transient mood state. Suggestions were made for further development of the survey and for research exploring relationships among nostalgia, motivation, emotion, and behavior.

Batcho's 1995 Nostalgia Inventory was completed by 210 respondents, 88 males and 122 females, ranging in age from 5 to 79 years old. Subjects scoring high on the Nostalgia Inventory rated the past more favorably than did subjects scoring low on the inventory but did not differ in ratings of the present or future. High-scoring individuals rated themselves more emotional, with stronger memories, need for achievement, and preference for activities with other people, but not as less happy, risk or thrill seeking, religious, logical, easily bored, or expecting to succeed. In a second study, 113 undergraduates, 32 men and 81 women, completed measures of nostalgia, memory, and personality. High-scoring subjects showed no advantage in free recall over low-scoring subjects but recalled more people-oriented autobiographical memories. Individuals scoring high on nostalgia were no more optimistic, pessimistic, or negatively emotional but scored higher on a measure of emotional intensity. Personal nostalgia was distinguished from social-historical nostalgia and world view. Results were discussed with respect to major theoretical approaches.

Emotion and topic were manipulated in original song lyrics. Participants completed Batcho’s (1995) and Holbrook’s (1993) nostalgia surveys and rated 6 sets of lyrics for happiness, sadness, anger, nostalgia, meaning, liking, and relevance. Nostalgic lyrics were characterized by bittersweet reverie, loss of the past, identity, and meaning. Contrary to theories linking nostalgia to pathology, participants who scored high on Batcho’s measure of personal nostalgia preferred happy lyrics, found them more meaningful, and related more closely to them. Consistent with theories relating nostalgia to social connectedness, high-nostalgia respondents preferred other-directed to solitary themes. Historical nostalgia was associated with relating more closely to sad lyrics.

The concept of nostalgia has changed substantially both denotatively and connotatively over the span of its 300-year history. This article traces the evolution of the concept from its origins as a medical disease to its contemporary understanding as a psychological construct. The difficulty of tracing a construct through history is highlighted. Attention is paid to roles played first by the medical context, and then by the psychiatric, psychoanalytic, and psychological approaches. Emphasis is given to shifts in the designation of nostalgic valence from bitter to sweet to bittersweet, and the processes of semantic drift and depathologization are explored. Because the sense of nostalgia was constructed and reconstructed within social, cultural, and historical contexts, its meaning changed along with the words used to describe and connect it to other entities. Nostalgia's past illustrates the influence of language, social-cultural context, and discipline perspectives on how a construct is defined, researched, and applied. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved).

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