Nostalgia Effect

Design Pattern

• Encourage pro-social behavior. Use nostalgia to promote pro-social behavior such as donating to a charity, participation in charitable event, or hiring volunteers. Research what nostalgia means for your audience.
• Foster social connectedness. If the goal of your product is to build and maintain long-term relationships, theming your product around nostalgia can help as it can foster social connectedness. Add a Timehop of #throwback concept to capitalize on the opportunity of reusing archived experiences.
• Anticipated nostalgia. We anticipate having nostalgic feelings for our present and future experiences. Savouring of a past experience tends to lead to stronger anticipated nostalgia of the future as people predict heightened self-esteem, social connectedness, and meaning in life.

When we reminisce about the past, we start favoring social connections over economic costs. Use nostalgia to promote pro-social behavior such as donating to charities, hiring volunteers for a cause, in other ways taking a social responsibility, or just getting back in touch with old friends. Nostalgia can help build long-term social relationships and foster social connectedness.

In the context of nostalgia, social connectedness and money are said to be interchangeable. Where nostalgia fosters social connectedness, reduces loneliness, and increases pro-social behavior, where money reduce the need of social connectness and promove isolation. When a person feels socially connected to others, their desire to hold on to their money will weaken.