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Dr. Clay Rutledge (7:46)

It feels like everywhere we turn these days, the past is making a big comeback from the long awaited sequel of classic films like the Devil Wears Prada, the comeback of Carrie and crew in and Just like that, and the hit Stranger Things, fueling a revival of 80s pop culture. Suddenly, ballet flats point and shoot, digital cameras, arcade games and cassette tapes are coveted yet again. This wave of nostalgia means it's the perfect time to explore what nostalgia really does for us beyond fond memories. What if that longing for the good old days could actually be a force for personal growth? Senior producer Theresa Carey spoke with Dr. Clay Rutledge, a professor of psychology and existential researcher who studies the surprising ways nostalgia supports our well being and motivates us towards the future. Dr. Rutledge leads the human flourishing lab at the Archbridge Institute where he investigates how meaning making shapes our psychological health. Here they are.

Teresa Carey (8:42)

Thank you, Clay for doing this and I'm looking forward to it.

Thumbtack Advertiser (8:44)

Yeah, I'm very excited.

Teresa Carey (8:46)

Nostalgia is often described as like a sentimental longing for the past. But your research shows that it's really more, much more than just reminiscing. It can be a valuable cycle, biological resource. It can boost mood, self esteem, social bonds. Could you explain some of your experimental evidence behind this? Like how do laboratory studies demonstrate that nostalgia actually increases? Well, being compared to other types of reflection.

Thumbtack Advertiser (9:13)

What we've done is we've brought research participants into a laboratory setting. We randomly assign them to what we call different conditions. And so some people are asked to engage in a task that gives them the opportunity to reflect on a nostalgic experience. Often this is letting them spend a few minutes writing about a nostalgic memory. So we give them a definition like nostalgia is defined as a sentimental longing for the past. Please spend a few minutes writing about a memory that makes you feel nostalgic. And then people in a control condition do a very similar task, but it doesn't involve nostalgia. So we might ask them to write about a recent, like a very recent day or an ordinary day in their life. What did you do yesterday? So the idea is to have these kind of comparison conditions that we think can do something similar, but doesn't have that special nostalgic memory associated with it. And then after doing one of those things, we have people do all sorts of tasks. We have complete questionnaires that measure their mood. So how, you know, happy or sad. The people who spend a few minutes engaging in nostalgic reflection, whether they wrote about a memory, listened to a nostalgic song, watched a nostalgic video, those people compared to the people in the control conditions, have more positive mood, feel a Greater sense of, like, belonging or social connection, feel more inspired to pursue their goals, feel more optimistic about the future than the people in the control conditions. In addition to that, we've done more like behavioral studies that don't just look at how people are feeling, but actually measure what they're doing. After doing one of these tasks. We give people the opportunity to sign up to volunteer for a charitable cause or even donate money for a charitable cause. We've found that people in the nostalgic condition are more giving and they're more willing to give their time and their money. For those people willing to sign up for another potential study. The ones in the nostalgic condition were more likely to want to be in the studies that involved interacting with other people. Nostalgia isn't just something that makes you feel more connected to others or feel more like, you know, optimistic or happy. It inspires the types of behavior that reflects that, wanting to be around other people. And so I think that's also, like, a really neat finding.

Teresa Carey (11:41)

And you wrote about this a little bit in your. In these themes in your book Past Forward, which just came out a few years ago, we talked about nostalgia being a tool for a more meaningful life. Let's talk about some of these examples from your work, where nostalgia perhaps helped people navigate change or uncertainty. Or how does thinking about these memories from the past help someone feel better or more hopeful about the present?

Thumbtack Advertiser (12:06)

So in the present, we don't know what's going to happen. We look around us and there's lots of opportunities for anxiety and uncertainty. And we need some direction to move forward. Like what. What choices should we make? What. What goals should we prioritize, what experiences should we privilege? And so what these nostalgic memories can do is they give us the opportunity to reflect back on things that have already happened, typically things that are further back in time. So we've had the time to kind of consolidate those memories, to make sense of them, of those experiences. And that gives us, you know, like a resource, a psychological resource that we can draw upon so we can say, you know, should I take this new job? I don't know. Here's pros and cons. But what do my nostalgic memories tell me about what I care most about? A lot of times we need confidence. We can look back on completely different memories where we've had to learn something new, where we've had to be brave, we've had to experiment, and we made it through that, right? And so that can help us feel more confident in the present, you know, so I've done difficult things before. I've had to embrace uncertainty and novelty before. I can do that again. And that kind of helps us navigate the uncertainties and the stressors of modern life.

Teresa Carey (13:23)

Okay, so you're talking to a little bit of a skeptic here, which is why I wanted to talk to you too, just to learn more about this. I think a lot of people sometimes experience nostalgia as more of a burden than a comfort. And I, I can sometimes put myself in, in that category too. There's a real ache and longing for moments that we know we can never, never truly relive. It's in the past. For those of us that struggle to see nostalgia as anything but wistfulness or loss. Can you explain why you believe it can still be a positive force?

Thumbtack Advertiser (13:54)

Yeah. Yeah.

Teresa Carey (13:55)

How should we shift our perspective to harness this, the benefits of nostalgia?

Thumbtack Advertiser (13:59)

For sure. Well, first you tapped into something important that I'm glad you brought up, which is nostalgia is considered a bittersweet emotion. It's not like a purely positive emotion. It's different than like joy or happiness. It does have that element of loss and sadness, sadness tinged in there. And so that makes it what we call a complex emotional experience. But you cannot go back in time. And so what we tend to do with these memories is even though they make us a little bit sad, we know we have to move forward. And so we use them as inspiration not to repeat the past, but to draw from it. So it's not that you get rid of the sadness, it's not that it doesn't sting. It's that that in itself helps speaks to the meaningfulness of the experience because it's prec. Now, it's true that there is a more kind of like light hearted nostalgia and pop culture that we often have that we can be like, oh, this was the music or the fashions or things I was into. But even within those more like cultural kind of nostalgias, you often find that the reason those things are speak to us is because they help us connect with those deeper experiences. So maybe you have nostalgia for a TV show or a video game from 20 years ago. It's that that reminds you of hanging out with a sibling or friends or doing something that's a deep, meaningful relationship to you and it gives you some access to that. I've talked to a lot of musicians and filmmakers and writers and entrepreneurs who are doing things that are very, very future oriented. But they all have these stories of inspiration of something that got them motivated to pursue this, that really affected the way they do their art, and then they do it in a more like forward looking, modern way. But they draw from those memories that are oftentimes, you know, bittersweet.

Teresa Carey (15:53)

Something that you said a minute ago made me think of how sometimes you can experience a sense of a guilt or obligation when it comes to keeping things that have been passed down from family members, old books, dolls, collectibles, things like that, that maybe don't hold personal meaning for us, but are considered special by the people that gave them to us. Therefore they should be special to us. And usually it's stuff that doesn't have any monetary value or any practical use, but we're told that they're important and they have been saved for generations, and we feel guilt about wanting to let them go. So, Clay, based on your research, why do these inherited objects carry such an emotional weight, even if we haven't imprinted that value on them? And how does this, I guess, inherited nostalgia, if that's a thing, affect our well being and our decision making?

Thumbtack Advertiser (16:45)

That's such a good question. Years ago, I was interviewed by a journalist and she actually asked me, why am I on the Internet trying to find the antique dishes that my mom tried to pass down to me, but I rejected? And I was like, that's a pretty specific. That's a pretty specific question. But, you know, objects do carry a lot of psychological value. They're reminders of specific memories or times in our lives. And so people will have all sorts of memorabilia, not because it in itself is particularly valuable. There's some research. I wasn't involved with this, but there's some research on the idea of nostalgia being contagious and what they had younger people read older people's nostalgic memories and that made them feel nostalgic, just, you know, reading someone else's about somebody else's nostalgia. And so I think there's something to the idea of, like, this was important to me. I'm passing it down to my kids. But at some point in their lives, it's possible they will see it as a connection to me and my, you know, in my story.

Teresa Carey (17:54)

I mean, does everybody always say, oh, the good old days, like, no matter what generation?

Thumbtack Advertiser (17:59)

Pretty much, yeah. So we have this, this reminiscence bias to generally think the, like, the cultural content of our youth was kind of the good old days. It's like, that's the best music, that's the best movies. So that does seem to be a documented trend.

Teresa Carey (18:18)

Is it because we really think that or because we're feeling Feeling nostalgic.

Thumbtack Advertiser (18:21)

I think it's because we're feeling nostalgic because that's a time when we, it's a time in our lives when our, our sense of like an independent self really starts to emerge. There's something about that self direction that like, you know, that like sense of autonomy and like personal development that really whatever's happening at that time really makes an impact on us and we, we, we regularly return to it.

Teresa Carey (18:48)

I want to think back about nostalgia throughout history because there were times when it was viewed negatively or even as a pathological emotion. So for example, way back in the 17th and 18th centuries, it was considered a medical disorder even among soldiers who are far from home. Of course that view has changed. But what do you think are the most important misconceptions about nostalgia that your work has had to correct? And how should we think about it differently today based on the science?

Thumbtack Advertiser (19:18)

Yeah, so you're absolutely right. I mean the history of nostalgia is fascinating. And I'd say the more recent mischaracterization of it is less dramatic. People don't see it as a disease, it's. But they see it as a weakness. You know, to be nostalgic is to be set in your ways to be longing. You know, instead of like living in the present and planning for the future, you're just like stuck in the past. One big mischaracterization is nostalgia is like a barrier to progress or it's a barrier to like moving forward in your life. People can use nostalgia in unproductive ways, just like people can over exercise and it'd be bad for them physically. For most people, nostalgia isn't something that holds them back. Instead, they look to the past when they feel held back. And it's not looking to the past that holds them back. It's like there's something that they're unhappy with in their lives and they're looking to the past to kind of, you know, kind of cope with it and to get past it. Well, loneliness is a good example. One of the biggest challenges with chronic loneliness is that it's self reinforcing. So when people experience loneliness, they're often hesitant to go out and interact with people because they worry about further rejection. There's quite a bit of research now, not just research from my research team, but from others as well. All over the world, actually in other countries, looking at nostalgia as a way to break the loneliness cycle. And it tends to be the case that nostalgia isn't holding people back and making them afraid to go out and Meet new people, it's actually doing the opposite. It's. It's making them feel more bold, socially confident. And so I think that that's a big. That's a big characterization of nostalgia, is this view that it's holding you back when in reality, it seems like for most people, most of the time, it's pushing them forward. When you have these big life transitions, you might turn to nostalgia more to stabilize you and to kind of help you figure out what to do next. So, you know, during the COVID pandemic, for instance, the nostalgic music on Spotify shot up in the. In the charts dramatically.

Teresa Carey (21:40)

Wow.

Thumbtack Advertiser (21:40)

People were listening to more music in general because they had more time to if they were, you know, stuck at home, but they were especially listening to older music. And so what you find is in these kinds of times where there's more anxiety and uncertainty or more social disconnection and pandemic being, again, a good example of people being separated from each other, you see a greater societal engagement with nostalgia. One of the things that started to just my colleagues and I started to discover is a lot of times when we think about the future, and if that makes us anxious, it often triggers mentally time traveling backwards. And that's how we started to discover that we turned into nostalgia not because we want to go backwards in time. We turn to nostalgia because we have to go forwards in time. And we need to marshal all the psychological resources we can to help us move forward with confidence, with hope, with creativity, with inspiration. Most of the time, the people that are doing the most forward looking, innovative work are very nostalgic people. And they're using their nostalgia to help them envision a better future. And it's not because they want to repeat the past. It's because they think there are elements from the past that are worth building upon.

Teresa Carey (23:09)

Well, thank you, Clay, so much for talking with me. This has been really great.

Thumbtack Advertiser (23:12)

Yeah.

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Dr. Samantha Meen (23:47)

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Dr. Clay Rutledge (24:28)

Imagine a boxer's pre fight training routine. Maybe you're picturing the rocky training montage or boxing slabs of meat in a butcher freezer, frantic skipping or chugging raw eggs. Well, what about juggling? Turns out it's very much a thing. In fact, even my Muay Thai coach has us juggling to sharpen our reflexes and hand eye coordination, which got me looking into the research behind it and I had no idea Juggling has actually been used as a tool to understand one of the most important concepts in neuroplasticity. Like what? Neuroscientists long understood that the adult brain can change and learn. But up until the early 2000s, the prevailing hypotheses were that these changes were from the brain changing how it worked, but not the actual structures. For example, the brain might learn how to power kick just by changing the way its cells fire, kind of like rerouting traffic on a highway, but not making any changes to the road itself. Enter a study of people learning to juggle, which was among the first to suggest that learning led to changes in the brain's structures. After just three months of adults learning how to juggle, MRI scans found noticeable changes in their brains. They had up to 4% more gray matter in areas of the brain that help us track motion. And another study of adults learning to juggle found more white matter. Together, these areas help us figure out what we're seeing, where it is in space, and how it's moving. In all of these studies so far, once learners stopped their juggling practice, the brain changes faded. Total bummer. You gotta keep practicing. But brain scans only tell part of the story. Critics have pointed out that the changes to gray and white matter are small and not clearly linked to performance changes. I was dead at how much research has been done on this, and I had no idea juggling played such a role in discovering what we know now about neuroplasticity. But back to my Muay Thai training and why I'm juggling. I'll share a video on my Instagram Science Sam of my progress juggling to date. I think my personal record is like 15 catches in a row. Don't laugh. My brain is trying to grow. Okay. For Warner Bros. Discovery, Curiosity Weekly is produced by the team at Wheelhouse DNA. The senior producer and editorial correspondent is Teresa Carey. Our producer is Chiara Noni. Our audio engineer is Nick Karismi. And head of Production for Wheelhouse DNA is Cassie Berman. And I'm Dr. Samantha Youen. Thanks for listening.

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