Nostalgia assuages spatial anxiety

Abstract

According to the regulatory model of nostalgia, the emotion is triggered by adverse psychological and physical experiences. Nostalgia, in turn, serves to counter those negative states. We extend this model to encompass spatial anxiety, that is, apprehension and disorientation during environmental navigation. In Experiment 1, we induced spatial anxiety by training participants to navigate a route in a virtual maze and then surreptitiously changing part of the previously learned route (spatial-anxiety condition) or leaving the route unchanged (neutral condition). Consistent with the regulatory model, spatial anxiety (compared to the neutral condition) triggered nostalgia. In Experiments 2–3, we displayed nostalgic (nostalgia condition) or matched control (control condition) pictures on the walls of a virtual maze. Participants navigated the maze passively (video clip, Experiment 2) or actively (computer-based task, Experiment 3) and then reported their spatial anxiety. Supporting the regulatory model, nostalgia (compared to control) reduced spatial anxiety (Experiments 2–3) and this, in turn, predicted higher goal setting (Experiment 3). Nostalgia assuages spatial anxiety during environmental navigation.