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Research examines how nostalgia affects relationship satisfaction and commitment duration in romantic partnerships, indicating significant emotional influences.
Nostalgia is a self-relevant, socially grounded emotion marked by a sentimental longing for the past. Compared to the well-documented benefits known about general personal nostalgia, most nostalgia studies in both emotion and relationship science rely heavily on Western samples, and nostalgic effects of former partners are mixed. With an Asian sample, the present research had two main aims: (a) Experimentally replicate the nostalgic effects of current and ex-partners on current relationship quality, and (b) examine the moderating role of relationship duration. Results revealed both ex- and romantic nostalgia increased relationship satisfaction, and, more interestingly, romantic nostalgia decreased relationship commitment in shorter relationships. Furthermore, exploratory analyses highlighted distinct affective patterns within romantic nostalgia. Implications and contributions are further discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
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Park et al. (2026) studied this question.
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