Nostalgia Increases Psychological Richness in Life

Nostalgia is a bittersweet emotion that increases happiness and meaning in life. Recently, psychological richness has been identified as a third component of a good life. The present research investigated whether nostalgia also enhances psychological richness in life. This was tested with two high-powered (Study 1 N = 640, Study 2 N = 1,007) preregistered experiments. We found evidence that nostalgia reliably enhances perceptions that life is psychologically rich, and this effect went above and beyond nostalgia’s effects on meaning in life and happiness. The effects were partially mediated by the unusualness of the nostalgic memories. In Study 2 (but not Study 1), we found evidence that nostalgia boosts the three facets of meaning in life: coherence, purpose, and mattering. Nostalgia appears to have broad benefits to people’s well-being.