Counteracting Loneliness

@article{Zhou2008CounteractingL,
  title={Counteracting Loneliness},
  author={Xinyue Zhou and Constantine Sedikides and Tim Wildschut and Dingguo Gao},
  journal={Psychological Science},
  year={2008},
  volume={19},
  pages={1023 - 1029}
}
Four studies tested whether nostalgia can counteract reductions in perceived social support caused by loneliness. Loneliness reduced perceptions of social support but increased nostalgia. Nostalgia, in turn, increased perceptions of social support. Thus, loneliness affected perceived social support in two distinct ways. Whereas the direct effect of loneliness was to reduce perceived social support, the indirect effect of loneliness was to increase perceived social support via nostalgia. This… 
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303 Citations

Combating Loneliness With Nostalgia: Nostalgic Feelings Attenuate Negative Thoughts and Motivations Associated With Loneliness
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Support is provided that nostalgia mitigates reduced social confidence and low approach-oriented social goals/intentions associated with loneliness and that nostalgia is a psychological resource that regulates these maladaptive intrapsychic tendencies associated withoneliness.
The Negative Interactive Effects of Nostalgia and Loneliness on Affect in Daily Life
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Testing daily states of nostalgia, loneliness, and affect across five daily diary studies found that nostalgia and loneliness were negatively related to positive affect and positively related to negative affect, supporting a theoretical account that proposes that the effect of nostalgia on well-being depends on the natural context in which nostalgia is elicited.
Nostalgia Promoting Pro-Social Behavior and Its Psychological Mechanism
Nostalgia is a kind of socio-emotional that refers to personal sentimentality caused by recalling objects, people, places, experiences or feelings from the past. Studies have found nostalgia has a…
Nostalgia Promoting Pro-Social Behavior and Its Psychological Mechanism
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Nostalgia as a repository of social connectedness: the role of attachment-related avoidance.
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It is demonstrated that, in addition to being a source of social connectedness, nostalgia increased participants' perceived capacity to provide emotional support to others and this beneficial effect of nostalgia was significantly stronger when attachment-related avoidance was low (compared with high).
The role of nostalgia in resistance: A psychological perspective
  • K. Batcho
  • Psychology
    Qualitative Research in Psychology
  • 2018
ABSTRACT The role of personal nostalgia in inspiring and sustaining resistance in the Ukraine during World War II was explored in narrative analysis of three memoirs. Common themes identified in the…
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Much of the impetus for the burgeoning interest in positive emotions was provided by the influential idea that these emotions play a vital role in the regulation of psychological distress and the…
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Nostalgia is a mostly positive emotional experience that involves reminiscing about personally significant events and/or social relationships. A growing literature indicates that nostalgic reflection…
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