Life History Theory and Social Connection

Abstract

Nostalgia involves reliving meaningful experiences such as those involving relationships. Nostalgia can help reestablish a symbolic connections with significant others (Sedikides, Wildschut, Arndt, & Routledge, 2006), effectively counteracting reduced perceptions of social support triggered by loneliness (Zhou, Sedikides, Wildschut, & Gao, 2008). Prior research reveals that slow-life strategists think of more distant past events when assessing their lives, than do fast-life strategists (Choi & Suh, 2018). Further, given that slow strategists engage in more mutualistic social behaviors (Wenner, 2010) and focus on establishing stable social connections (Figueredo et al., 2018), they would likely care more to be socially connected. Therefore, we will examine whether slow-life strategists use nostalgia more than do fast-life strategists to cope with disconnection from others. We will first measure participants’ life history strategies, then manipulate their feelings of disconnection from others (i.e., loneliness), and measure any subsequent nostalgia.