The Comfort of Familiarity: Psychological Safety in Places from Our Past

Does returning to a place you once lived in or even visited feel like a warm hug? The nostalgia and unspoken comfort of coming back ‘home’ can feel surreal. Amidst the chaos of a work-life balance, shifting and traveling for various reasons, multitudes of stress, and the ever-changing nature of living, familiarity holds a lot of importance. The experiences and emotions from the past are often attached to people and places. This is why we have an attachment towards them, giving us a feeling of safety and comfort when we revisit them and find ourselves in that familiar space. This article explores the comfort of familiarity and the psychological safety in places from our past.  

Why do we get attached to places? 

Interactions and environmental impact 

The psychological reasoning behind why we get attached to places can be well explained by the Placement Attachment Theory by Altman and Low. Also called the place attachment concept. It refers to positive bonds people form the places and the emotions attached to them (Brown, 2012). It could be a place you once visited in your childhood. The neighborhood one grew up in. Old school, a friend’s or relatives house in a different city you once visited, offices, homes and more. We have a strong connection and attachment to these with emotions of various kinds tied to them.

These also come with various cognitive biases and thoughts that are rooted in this psychosocial environment. The longer we stay in a place, the more attached we get. So, the more familiar it becomes to our nervous systems. For example, spending time in your previous home, school, college, or office helps your senses adjust to the surroundings, people, and smells, making them feel familiar.

It can remind you of multiple things and make our bodies feel safer. Familiar surroundings and past interactions often trigger fond memories and experiences, creating a sense of secure attachment and positively impacting our minds.(APA PsycNet, n.d.b). 

Classical conditioning and Association with a place 

We often attach the feeling of comfort and safety as synonymous with familiarity. This is better explained by the psychological concept of classical conditioning. In the context of the environment, people, and our emotions, conditioning helps us to get acclimated to a place. Classical conditioning as coined by Ivan Pavlov, and the concept of associating things or stimuli with natural reflexes (MSEd, 2023c).

Just like the dog salivates at the sight of food in Pavlov’s experiment, one can feel a sense of nostalgia and safety associated with a place from the past. Memories flood in. An unconditioned stimulus that leads to a somewhat automatic response. In this case even your old classroom which is the unconditioned stimulus getting an automatic response like nostalgia, a feeling of safety and familiarity.

Schemas and Place Perception 

In the simplest words, schemas are patterns and ways of thinking and behaving by which people interpret and perceive the world around them. These are found in the long-term memory and help us understand the experience we go through better by also remembering them longer (MSEd, 2024b). The unique interactions, experiences that we have experienced become core memories over time. Just like that, places we have visited in the past are the same. There are four kinds of schemas- person schemas, social schemas, self schemas, and event schemas. 

In terms of the four schemas in a way working together, familiar places can activate certain cognitive schemas in our brains. Jean Piaget and Frederic Bartlett explored further the role they play. The structure a place offers, the rules and norms of it when one was there, how we learnt them, and the safety we felt with it become crucial. Even the perception of it can trigger our sense of safety and longing. The certain beliefs we hold about the place that made us feel happy and content can show up as feeling safe, and familiarity with it all only makes the experience better. 

How our brains receive nostalgia 

Nostalgia is complex and multifaceted. It is a feeling of longing and, in the simplest words, missing something or someone. There are two types of nostalgia, positive and negative nostalgia. Here we are exploring positive nostalgia where people associate places, other people, and memories with positive feelings of comfort, happiness, and even love and bonding (Cuncic, 2023). Thereby, the safety in familiarity and places from the past. 

Autobiographical Memory 

Although used interchangeably with episodic memory, autobiographical memory refers mainly to the stored information in our brains (APA Dictionary of Psychology, n.d.-b). Those facts, memories, that are associated with places, events, and people, that then stored in the episodic memory. This also activates the amygdala. When people revisit or think about places from their past, they often feel a sense of familiarity that evokes memories and brings comfort and belonging. It is also the knowledge of self, but in this case, more of events and places, and our associating them with comfort and familiarity. 

It is fair to say that the places from our past that seem familiar bring us immense joy and comfort and it’s mainly because our minds, thighs and experiences in those places help us feel that way and make us feel that feeling of ‘home’ and comfort.

FAQs 

1.Why do familiar places make us feel better? 

It reminds us of our memories and experiences from the past that reduces the anxiety and emotional load due to more predictability and increased comfort of knowing the place. 

2. Is nostalgia for old places good for our mental health? 

Places that activate the happy, and fulfilled side of us that bring in positive memories, called as positive nostalgia, can increase positive emotions.