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Right‐frontal cortical asymmetry predicts increased proneness to nostalgia
Author(s) -
Tullett Alexa M.,
Wildschut Tim,
Sedikides Constantine,
Inzlicht Michael
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
psychophysiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.661
H-Index - 156
eISSN - 1469-8986
pISSN - 0048-5772
DOI - 10.1111/psyp.12438
Subject(s) - psychology , sadness , trait , feeling , loneliness , personality , big five personality traits , electroencephalography , frontal lobe , neural correlates of consciousness , developmental psychology , social psychology , anger , neuroscience , cognition , programming language , computer science
Nostalgia is often triggered by feelings—such as sadness, loneliness, or meaninglessness—that are typically associated with withdrawal motivation. Here, we examined whether a trait tendency to experience withdrawal motivation is associated with nostalgia proneness. Past work indicates that baseline right‐frontal cortical asymmetry is a neural correlate of withdrawal‐related motivation. We therefore hypothesized that higher baseline levels of right‐frontal asymmetry would predict increased proneness to nostalgia. We assessed participants' baseline levels of frontal cortical activity using EEG. Results supported the hypothesis and demonstrated that the association between relative right‐frontal asymmetry and increased nostalgia remained significant when controlling for the Big Five personality traits. Overall, these findings indicate that individuals with a stronger dispositional tendency to experience withdrawal‐related motivation are more prone to nostalgia.