In search for meaningfulness: nostalgia as an antidote to boredom.

We formulated, tested and supported, in six studies, a theoretical model according to which individuals use nostalgia as a way to re-inject meaningfulness in their lives when they experience boredom. Studies 1-3 established that induced boredom causes increases in nostalgia, when participants have the opportunity to revert to their past. Studies 4-5 examined search for meaning as a mediator of the effect of boredom on nostalgia. Specifically, Study 4 showed that search for meaning mediates the effect of state boredom on nostalgic memory content, whereas Study 5 demonstrated that search for meaning mediates the effect of dispositional boredom on dispositional nostalgia. Finally, Study 6 examined the meaning re-establishment potential of nostalgia during boredom: nostalgia mediates the effect of boredom on sense of meaningfulness and presence of meaning in one s life. Nostalgia counteracts the meaninglessness that individuals experience when they are bored.