Social Nostalgia Research Articles

The Effect of Nostalgic Contents on Self-Esteem: The Mediating Role of Loneliness.

BackgroundResearch has demonstrated that nostalgia can improve self-esteem as a positive psychological resource in Western culture. Moreover, nostalgia is cross-culturally consistent. Therefore, nostalgia triggered by an event reflection task affects self-esteem in Eastern cultures. However, it is unknown whether the collective or personal content of nostalgia affects self-esteem and the role of loneliness in this process.PurposeThis study examined the cross-cultural consistency of nostalgia’s impact on self-esteem, whether nostalgic content affects self-esteem levels, and what role loneliness plays in this process.MethodsWe conducted two experiments in this study. Experiment 1 used an event reflection task with different instructions to prime the nostalgia and control groups. Participants were asked to complete the Positive and Negative Affect Scale and a revised positive version of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale after priming. Experiment 2 used different instructions and pictures to prime the social and personal nostalgia groups. The PANAS, a revised positive version of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and the Russell Loneliness Scale were then administered to the groups.ResultsExperiment 1 showed that in the nostalgic condition, self-esteem was higher than in the control condition. In the nostalgia condition, participants felt more positive than in the control condition. Experiment 2 revealed that self-esteem was higher in the collective nostalgic context than in the personal nostalgic context. Regarding the positive effect, participants felt more positive in the collective nostalgic context than in the personal nostalgic context. Loneliness also had a mediating effect on this process.ConclusionResults show that nostalgia affects self-esteem through cross-cultural consistency and social nostalgia can be a resource for positive mental health. Moreover, loneliness plays a significant role in mediating nostalgia’s effect on self-esteem.

An Interpretation of the Nostalgic signs in Shirko's poetry

Although nostalgia is primarily a medical term and is associated with psychology, it has been presented in the literary area for centuries. Sherko is one of the great poets of contemporary style in Kurdistan. This brought nostalgia and a special sense of hopelessness to his poetry. Where he described the misery and sadness of being away using different poetic imagery. The signs of nostalgia in the work of Sherko Bekas consist of personal and public nostalgia. This study attempted to evaluate the results of public and private nostalgia in Shirko's works in a descriptive and analytical manner. In order to show the distinctive characteristics of the theme of the sadness of the past and the sadness of estrangement on the one hand, and then evaluate the psycho-social foundations in the poet’s works on the other hand, and through this, determine the cause of the sadness of the past and the sadness of alienation, which tends more to the popular destination than to the personal feeling.       The results of this search show the Shirko’s area which holds both types of nostalgia. Personal nostalgia through which Sherko attracted attention to his personal life, as well as social nostalgia in which he has a special social imprint which means a lot to him. But the social nostalgia in Sherko's work is more prominent than personal nostalgia.

Worrying times: the fear of crime and nostalgia

ABSTRACT As well as finding empirical relationships between victimisation, key socio-demographic variables and various psychological and environmental processes, criminologists have long suspected that the feelings now identified, corralled together and labelled as ‘the fear of crime’ have roots in the wider shifts in the social and economic bases of society. In this paper, and using survey data from a nationally representative sample of Britons aged over 16 (n = 5781), we explore the relationships between feelings of political and social nostalgia and the fear of crime. We find that nostalgia is strongly related to crime fears, and, indeed, stronger even than variables such as victimisation, gender and age (three of the frequently cited associates of fear). We go on to explore these relationships further in terms of different socio-economic classes and relate feelings of nostalgia and fear to their recent (ie, post-1945) historical trajectories.

STORIES ABOUT SOCIALIST CULTURE AS TOLD BY ‘ESTRADA MUSICIANS’ IN BULGARIA: TWO PERSPECTIVES ON THE PAST FROM 1990-1992 AND 2010-2018

The text presents the results of a study of stories about everyday life during the last years of the socialist past (1983–1989) by representatives of a specific professional group – ‘Estrada musicians’. The main goal is to highlight the differences in the two regimes of history in the memories of the socialist popular culture. The first regime of remembrance (1990-1992) is a time of the emotionally charged anti-communist speech in the media like the Democracy newspaper, and vice versa – a strong defense of socialist values in the Duma newspaper. The second regime of remembrance is after 2010, when “nostalgia for socialism” stands out as one of the dominant emotions.

International Media and Tourism Industry as the Facilitators of Socialist Legacy Heritagization in the CEE Region

After the fall of state socialism in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), the socialist legacy became a matter of contested discourses, coming from the new national governments. However, with the recently awakening nostalgia for socialism and growing international interest for the socialist pasts, the approaches to its legacies began gradually to change. In this paper, the focus is on some recent international trends with regards to the socialist heritage for evaluating the share of their influences in the process of de-contestation occurring at the local/national levels. There are two processes standing in juxtaposition to be observed; on the one hand, official nation branding distances the state from socialist pasts to emphasize, often contrasting, post-socialist national identity. On the other hand, the development of communist heritage tourism attempts to reconsider and appropriate socialist legacies in the national frameworks for identity construction. Using the examples from Hungary, Romania, and the former Yugoslavia, the author demonstrates the role of international media and the tourism industry for meeting the objectives of economic development while maintaining post-socialist national identity senses, but also their potentials in reconsiderations of the contested history chapters.

Memories of 1989 in Europe between Hope, Dismay, and Neglect

This article is part of the special section titled The Genealogies of Memory, guest edited by Ferenc Laczó and Joanna Wawrzyniak This introduction to the special section on memories of 1989 calls for a closer analysis of various ways in which narratives of the democratic breakthrough in East Central Europe develop at the transnational, national, and vernacular levels. The four case studies in this section show that the liberal view of 1989 has been neither institutionalized nor internalized as its most common understanding. Instead, we observe a divergence of interpretations, the replacement of 1989 with other symbolic dates, its non-existence in the “working memory” of Western Europeans, as well as disappointments, frustrations, or nostalgia for socialism in East Central Europe.

Nostalgija kaip sociologinio tyrimo objektas: problemos ir teorinės prieigos

Nostalgia defined as a social phenomenon is an object of this article. The article discusses theoretical nostalgias interpretations and analyses various forms in which nostalgia manifests itself. Author emphasizes a necessity to distinguish between modern and post-modern nostalgias. Modern nostalgia has been concep­tualised as yearning for the past. This yearning originates from a disappointment with contemporary life and disapproval of permanent progress idea. However, post-modern nostalgia does not involve sentiments or melancholia. Contemporary culture, characterised by mediated culture, mass production and consump­tion, creates preconditions for new forms of nostalgia. Idealized images of the past are being used for com­mercial purposes and retrospective artefacts become tools for creating style and looks. In addition, author criticizes the term “soviet nostalgia” and suggests “nostalgia for socialism” to be used instead. Ostalgia, as the most studied form of nostalgia for socialism, is being discussed with an emphasis on distinction between its modern and post-modern manifestations.

The effect of personal and social nostalgia on prosocial behavior

The effect of personal and social nostalgia on prosocial behavior

'Pitbulls' and Populist Politicians: Sarah Palin, Pauline Hanson and the Use of Gendered Nostalgia in Electoral Campaigns

Sarah Palin and Pauline Hanson were charismatic and populist politicians, whose home states of Alaska and Queensland became central to their political narrative. Both women gained political influence at times of intense debate regarding their respective countries' national identities. Voters perceived the states to be locales that evoked antiestablishment authenticity, and which echoed the historical dynamism of frontier society. The women used this association to consolidate their call for social renewal that would return politics to sections of the citizenry who felt themselves to be marginalized. The women's authority was augmented by gendered stereotypes that directed attention to their apparent vulnerability and honesty in attempting public service. Although their messages were calibrated differently, Palin and Hanson both demanded moral and political renewal, and generated intense support through their sexualized rhetoric of economic security and social nostalgia.

Lost in Transition

Why is there nostalgia for real socialism? Is it but a logical response to sudden, dramatic transformation? Don’t people remember those days anymore—or do they remember them all too well? In popular opinion, nostalgia for socialism is something fabricated, invented, and then imposed by different groups of people to achieve some goals: to open a new commercial niche, to attain political credit, to win popular support, to get artistic inspiration, and so on. Thus, many academic studies have examined only this instrumental side of the phenomenon, limiting it to the “industry of nostalgia” only. But research shows that nostalgia is in fact a retrospective utopia, a wish and a hope for a safe world, a fair society, true friendships, mutual solidarity, and well-being in general, in short, for a perfect world. As such, it is less a subjective, arbitrary, ideological effort to recall the past as it is, an undetermined, undefined, amorphous wish to transcend the present. So nostalgia for socialism in fact does not relate exclusively and precisely to past times, regimes, values, relations, and so on as such, but it embodies a utopian hope that there must be a society that is better than the current one.

Decay or Endurance? The Ruins of Socialism

The building of socialism, in its concrete and metaphorical sense, has been in a state of constant decay—in ruins—from its very foundation. For those who inhabited it, endurance became a way of life. It is precisely this endurance that explains the resistance, by both people and the landscapes in which they live, to the market. Nostalgia for socialism has become a commodity, but not for those who still live in its ruins, because they are home. This essay by Thomas Lahusen explores this ruined landscape, from the vanishing Palace of the Republic in Berlin and the decrepit-looking buildings made of precast concrete slabs of real socialism, to its culture, which shares decay and ruin with its built structures. Lahusen juxtaposes this landscape to philosophical essays on the collapse of communism and to recent histories, some of which yield new fetishes and new commodities.