Is longing only for Germans? A cross-cultural comparison of Sehnsucht in Germany and the United States.

Scheibe, Susanne; Blanchard‐Fields, Fredda; Wiest, Maja; Freund, Alexandra M.

doi:10.1037/a0021807

Cited by 16 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 60 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Because data collection took place in December, and to stimulate a broader focus than daily wants and desires, such as for food and sleep (Hofmann, Baumeister, Förster, & Vohs, 2012) but a narrower focus than personal life longings, such as for peace and harmony (Scheibe, Blanchard-Fields, Wiest, & Freund, 2011), the task was labeled as “New Year’s Wishes.” The introduction read: “Everyone has certain personal wishes for the new year. Below is a list of 12 possible wishes.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Materialism across the life span: An age-period-cohort analysis.

Jaspers

Pieters

2016

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This research examined the development of materialism across the life span. Two initial studies revealed that (a) lay beliefs were that materialism declines with age and (b) previous research findings also implied a modest, negative relationship between age and materialism. Yet, previous research has considered age only as a linear control variable, thereby precluding the possibility of more intricate relationships between age and materialism. Moreover, prior studies have relied on cross-sectional data and thus confound age and cohort effects. To improve on this, the main study used longitudinal data from 8 waves spanning 9 years of over 4,200 individuals (16 to 90 years) to examine age effects on materialism while controlling for cohort and period effects. Using a multivariate multilevel latent growth model, it found that materialism followed a curvilinear trajectory across the life span, with the lowest levels at middle age and higher levels before and after that. Thus, in contrast to lay beliefs, materialism increased in older age. Moreover, age effects on materialism differed markedly between 3 core themes of materialism: acquisition centrality, possession-defined success, and acquisition as the pursuit of happiness. In particular, acquisition centrality and possession-defined success were higher at younger and older age. Independent of these age effects, older birth cohorts were oriented more toward possession-defined success, whereas younger birth cohorts were oriented more toward acquisition centrality. The economic downturn since 2008 led to a decrease in acquisition as the pursuit of happiness and in desires for personal growth, but to an increase in desires for achievement. (PsycINFO Database Record

show abstract

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Materialism across the life span: An age-period-cohort analysis.

Jaspers

Pieters

2016

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The behavior-expanding nature of ambivalent affect is not always beneficial. In instances of longing and Sehnsucht in which the desire is definitively unobtainable, the feeling is more pervasive and associated with lowered perceived well-being (Kotter-Gruhn, Scheibe, Blanchard-Fields, & Baltes, 2009; Scheibe et al, 2011). This same effect can also occur in nostalgia when it represents a strong, undesired change in self-identity or the current state of being (Iyer & Jetten, 2011).…”

Section: Conflict Is Critical To the Function Of Ambivalent Affectmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The feeling that occurs during cue-induced craving in addiction has also been viewed by some as a mixed positive and negative state (Cartwright & Stritzke, 2008; Veilleux, Conrad, & Kassel, 2013). Such feelings may be described and experienced somewhat differently across individuals, cultures, and contexts, but the fundamental condition of feeling simultaneously positive and negative appears to be universal (Lomas, 2017; Miyamoto, Uchida, & Ellsworth, 2010; Rafaeli, Rogers, & Revelle, 2007; Scheibe, Blanchard-Fields, Wiest, & Freund, 2011). Note that ambivalent affective states appear to have less clear neural correlates than their univalent counterparts, and experiments in psychology have yielded varied and conflicting interpretations as to how they may be constructed.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Bittersweet: The Neuroscience of Ambivalent Affect

Vaccaro

Kaplan

Damásio

2020

Perspect Psychol Sci

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Ambivalent affective states, such as bittersweetness, nostalgia, and longing, which are felt as having both positive and negative aspects, are an important component of human experience but have received little attention. The most influential theoretical frameworks in affective neuroscience focus largely on univalenced states. As a result, it is not known whether ambivalent affect corresponds to a simultaneously positive and negative valenced state or whether it results from a rapid vacillation between positive and negative states. Here we hypothesize that ambivalent affect involves both mechanisms, that is, rapid vacillation and simultaneity of positive and negative affect, albeit at different neurobiological levels. Rapidly vacillating univalent emotions could give rise to an ambivalent feeling, a mechanism that depends on brainstem nuclei that facilitate rapid action programs of emotional behavior while inhibiting opposing behaviors. This reciprocal inhibition prevents organisms from simultaneously implementing responses to conflicting emotions but also allows for rapid switching between emotions triggered by counterfactual thinking and rapid reappraisal of situations. We propose that as these transitions occur and respective interoceptive information reaches the insular cortex, further processing of this “emotional moment” would allow separate emotional events to be experienced as one “mixed” and integrated feeling.

show abstract

“…Life longings have been defined as recurring, intense desires for ideal, alternative states of life that are remote or unattainable. They can be described by a six-factorial structure that was empirically supported in German and U.S. samples (Baltes, 2008; Scheibe, Blanchard-Fields, Wiest, & Freund, 2009; Scheibe, Freund, & Baltes, 2007). Life longings (a) involve feelings of imperfection and incompleteness (i.e., something highly important is missing in life); (b) deal with individuals’ utopian conceptions of life that are not fully attainable; (c) focus on intense, emotionally toned experiences, events, or persons from the past and anticipated meaningful experiences in the present and future (tritime focus); (d) activate reflective and evaluative processes comparing actual situations with ideal ones; (e) are accompanied by ambivalent emotions; and (f) are symbolically rich in emotional and mental meaning of the specific target that is the object of longing.…”

mentioning

confidence: 93%

Developmental emergence and functionality of Sehnsucht (life longings): The sample case of involuntary childlessness in middle-aged women.

Kotter-Grühn¹,

Scheibe²,

Blanchard‐Fields³

et al. 2009

Psychology and Aging

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Sehnsucht (life longings), the intense desire for optimal (utopian) states of life that are remote or unattainable, was recently introduced into life-span psychology as a concept of self-regulation (P. B. Baltes, 2008; S. Scheibe, A. M. Freund, & P. B. Baltes, 2007). The authors propose that as a compensatory strategy to deal with nonrealizability and loss, life longings may develop out of blocked goals. Individuals would cease to invest behavioral effort into its attainment and instead maintain the goal target in imagination. In a sample of 168 middle-aged childless women, the present study investigated the circumstances under which the wish for children emerges as a goal or life longing and whether the representation of the wish for children as a life longing is beneficial for well-being. The wish for children was expressed as a goal when participants rated this wish as currently intense and attainable. In contrast, it was expressed as a life longing when participants rated it as highly intense and long-standing. The pursuit of the wish for children as a life longing was positively related to well-being only when participants had high control over the experience of this life longing and when other self-regulation strategies (goal adjustment) failed.

show abstract

Is longing only for Germans? A cross-cultural comparison of Sehnsucht in Germany and the United States.

Cited by 16 publications

References 60 publications

Materialism across the life span: An age-period-cohort analysis.

Materialism across the life span: An age-period-cohort analysis.

Bittersweet: The Neuroscience of Ambivalent Affect

Developmental emergence and functionality of Sehnsucht (life longings): The sample case of involuntary childlessness in middle-aged women.

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About