Revisiting Nostalgia for Current and Ex-Romantic Partners: Affective Profiles and the Moderating Effect of Relationship Duration

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.