Sentimentality and Nostalgia in Elderly People: Psychometric Properties of a New Questionnaire

Abstract

A new questionnaire measuring sentimentality and nostalgia in elderly people was developed based on the scale Sentimentality from HEXACO Personality Inventory – Revised (Lee & Ashton, 2013), the scale Sentimentality from Psychological Inventory of Criminal-Thinking Styles (PICTS) (Walters, 2002; Walters & Geyer, 2005); the subscale Sentimentality from Temperament and Character Inventory-Revised (TCI-R) (Cloninger, Svrakic, & Przybeck, 1993). A sample of 121 Bulgarian elderly people was studied. The results revealed the importance of the past for the elderly people. The questionnaire had good psychometric properties. Four factors were extracted - Past emotions continue in the present; Nostalgia of the Past; Sentimental compensation; and One’s past perceived by the others. Comparison of the average values on the factors divided into the number of the items in the factor indicated that nostalgia of the past was the most strongly expressed among the elderly people, followed by the experiences related to one’s past perceived by the other people, past emotions continuing in the present, and the attempts for sentimental compensation of some past bad deeds.