The Hedonic Character of Nostalgia: An Integrative Data Analysis

We conducted an integrative data analysis to examine the hedonic character of nostalgia. We combined positive and negative affect measures from 41 experiments manipulating nostalgia (N = 4,659). Overall, nostalgia inductions increased positive and ambivalent affect, but did not significantly alter negative affect. The magnitude of nostalgia’s effects varied markedly across different experimental inductions of the emotion. The hedonic character of nostalgia, then, depends on how the emotion is elicited and the benchmark (i.e., control condition) to which it is compared. We discuss implications for theory and research on nostalgia and emotions in general.