Why am I so sentimental?

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1:08This one's really good. So it's a really battered old, like, Nokia mobile phone, like a brick. There's a museum in Zagreb in Croatia which is full of precious objects like this one. The note says, It was 300 days too long. He gave me his mobile phone so that I couldn't call him anymore. And it looks like the phone's been smashed up pretty bad. As well as this broken phone, there's an antique metronome, a grandmother's handwritten family recipe for Mexican mole, and an old horseshoe. Today it would have been our 10-year anniversary, and letting go of this horseshoe allows me to move on from the day we met.

1:48How sad. They're all objects that at one point someone felt extremely attached to, and found difficult to let go of. But eventually, they were donated to this museum, where they could be preserved as relics of broken relationships. This is a wedding veil, and her husband stepped all over the veil, got footprints all over it, and eventually the marriage broke down, and they've donated their veil, which they say is bad luck. You can see the mud from the footprints on the bottom of it. I'm Anand Jagatia, and in this edition of CrowdScience from the BBC World Service, we're tackling a question about the stuff we find ourselves holding on to.

2:35I'm Kerry from Kingston, Ontario, Canada. So my question for CrowdScience is, why do we get so sentimentally attached to certain objects? So why have you been thinking about this? I recently moved and downsized and in the downsizing I had to go through all of my stuff and I came across things that I felt a very strong attachment to a sentimental attachment to and it occurred to me that I didn't really understand why I found it so difficult to get rid of or give away or whatever the case may be certain items and so that's why I contacted CrowdScience to ask, is there something behind sentimentality that's innately human, or did we learn it, or whatever the case may be, and to see it from a scientific perspective, because every time I looked up the word sentimentality, the definitions were heavily negatively emotionally impacted, and I just wanted the facts.

3:48When did you move house? When did you downsize, Kerry? I moved to this apartment for June the 1st. Oh, so you're only just in, really? Yes, it's not three months yet. I didn't have to get rid of that much stuff. The issue was when I sorted through everything to pack, that I realised I was holding on to things that I'd had for a long time. And one particular thing is I had a blue steamer trunk, which I deposited things that were meaningful to me over a period of, well, I'm 66, and I got that when I was 19. So that's a long time to accumulate stuff. And as I was going through it, I realized, and this is why the question arose, that there were items in the trunk that I just still felt a very strong attachment to, even though it had been in there and I hadn't thought about it in years.

4:46A steamer trunk is one of those big old-fashioned boxes that people used to take on steamships. Over the decades, Kerry has downsized several times, and with each move, he's got rid of a few more possessions in the trunk. And now he's in his 60s, and what's left in there feels really important. Sentimentality is about having strong feelings for things that don't necessarily have any real in-the-world utility. As a matter of fact, you see these black strings? Is this one of the objects? Well, it's a pair of skates. And when I was a teenager, I was a champion figure skater. And these are the skates I wore.

5:30Yet now, I can't use them because they're in such bad shape. and there's no way to bring them back to their former glory, we'll say, nor for me for that matter. I was going to say, you're talking about the skates yourself there. Could you hold them up so I could see them on the screen? Sure, sure, sure. Wow, yeah, okay. So they're really beautiful, kind of very smart black ice skates. It sounds like they sort of represent part of you, part of who you are. And so to get rid of them would almost feel like getting rid of a piece of you. Yes. However, me is going to be gotten rid of at some point.

6:16So Kerry wants to know how and why we become sentimentally attached to our possessions, especially things that have no practical use, and why, even if we say we want to, we can find it hard to part with the objects we've accumulated. Let's start with the basics. What do we mean by sentimentality? Sentimentality is a tendency to feel certain emotions when thinking about the past. Melissa Norberg is a professor of psychology at Macquarie University in Australia. We generally think those emotions tend to be positive. However, there can be some sadness tied to it. So let's say that you get attached to a possession that reminds you of a holiday you went on in Greece.

7:07That might bring back some positive emotions about the trip. But at the same time, you might also feel a bit of sadness knowing that you can't go back to Greece or you won't be able to go back for a long time. And what's the link between sentimentality and emotion? So sentimentality isn't itself an emotion. It sort of is a way in which we feel emotions. To me, sentimentality is a bond that we form with an emotion that then brings up emotions. yeah that makes sense and you said it's also linked to the past but does it have to be I mean what if you're just watching like a Disney movie or something and it's the kind of thing that makes you um go a bit teary let's say is was that also kind of sentimentality or is that more of a colloquial way of using that word well I I think that's getting attached to something you are doing And so in the moment, I guess it's ongoing.

8:07But if you stay attached to that memory, then that memory is in the past. So it can be kind of confusing, but I think that maybe that's partly about routine. Like maybe you watch this movie a bunch of times, similarly to drinking your coffee out of the same mug every morning. That routine and that mug can develop some sentimentality. So objects can become connected to memories that trigger emotions. And that's one reason we can get attached to things that may otherwise be entirely worthless, like that mug someone gave you or the fridge magnet you brought back from holiday. But where might our tendency to collect objects come from?

8:49When we define an object, it's a thing that's not part of us. Mary Dozier is a clinical psychologist at Mississippi State University in the US. She studies hoarding disorder when people find it difficult to get rid of any of their possessions. But object attachment is something we all share to differing extents. When we first started using things around us, they were tools, right? That it was discovering how to make fire, how to make a spear. And so I think that initial attachment probably came from, you know, developing preferences around that, of figuring out how to make the best spear, right?

9:25That if you have the best fire making tools, you probably develop a preference for that. And then you become more attached to it because it says something about who you are as the best fire maker. That's really interesting. That's a connection I hadn't thought about before. I suppose that probably our proclivity for becoming attached to objects probably does link to the fact that we're tool makers. Because if you've spent, you know, 100 hours sharpening this rock so that it's really sharp and you can use it as a blade, you don't want to lose that rock whereas if you can just pick up any rock on the floor then and use that to smash open a nut or something that's kind of a different thing and I probably linked with like our commitment to that object right goes like you were bringing up of the cost of it right whether it's the cost of your time or I guess I will confess I finally did get rid of my prom dress I guess I don't know if y 'all have prom there but it's a big dance that they do in high school I got rid of it a few years ago but I held on to it for like a decade because it was the most expensive thing in my closet at the time.

10:25We have a tendency to hold on to things that are valued either sentimentally or cost-wise. Did it take you a really long time or take someone in your life a long time to make something?

10:41So the emotion we attach to objects might have started with their use to us as tools. These are things that would have had a practical use and a cost in terms of the time it took to make them. But the stuff we become attached to today is often useless and costs next to nothing, although it has sentimental value. So how does this process happen? I've done a few different studies that have looked at sentimentality in various ways. This is Melissa Norberg again. One of them is an experimental study where I brought people into the lab and I had them engage in an online computer task. So they were told that they're playing a game of ball with other people on the internet, but the game was rigged.

11:30Some of the participants were thrown the ball the same amount as other players. Some were passed it more often, and others were deliberately excluded in an aim to make them feel left out. I've said it before on CrowdScience, experimental psychologists are mean. Anyway, after taking part in this game, people were shown a bunch of objects and asked to choose their favourite one to take home. We had objects that had some sort of human form to them because we thought anthropomorphism, which is seeing humanness in items, might increase sentimental attachment. So we wanted to set up all the conditions that might produce sentimentality.

12:09So one of the items was a tea man holder. So you put tea in this little guy who's really cute and he hangs over your tea mug. And so they had five objects like that in front of them on the desk. And we would first say, OK, if you could take any one of these objects home with you, which one would it be? And after they chose it, we then asked them a series of questions that got at sentimentality. What Melissa found is that the people who were equally or over-included in the game of catch were more likely to develop a sentimental attachment to their chosen object than the people who were excluded And so this study just really reaffirms what we experience in everyday life When we enjoy something in our lives we then develop a sentimental attachment to the things that are associated with that event and that increases the value of the object to us.

13:05So that's interesting. So you're saying that the people that enjoyed playing the game because they were included in it, in some way they kind of felt like this was a positive thing they wanted to remember. It's almost like when you go to a concert or something and you can buy a bit of merch because it was a great gig and you want to remember the gig. It's like they had a good time. So is that what you're saying? Exactly. Exactly. And so if you're trying to save money and not bring new items into your home, it's good to be aware that that's how we operate as humans. And so that you don't fall into those traps, because there is lots of merch for sale when you go to concerts.

13:41I love that social psychologists have an experimental task specifically designed to study social exclusion and rejection. Maybe something to bear in mind the next time one of them asks you to play a game. It's interesting that something as banal as a digital game of catch can be something people want to remember with a souvenir. I guess it speaks to the deeply human desire to use objects to memorialise good times. But we don't always hold on to objects because they make us feel good. Sometimes the things we keep are embodied with pain and loss. That's what we'll be looking at next. This is summer at its peak.

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15:19You're listening to CrowdScience from the BBC World Service. I'm Anand Jagatia, and this week we're exploring why we get sentimentally attached to our possessions, thanks to a question from listener Kerry in Canada. He's finding it difficult to part with things he's owned for decades, even though he wants to get rid of them. But the act of giving away an object can itself become extremely meaningful. And it's something that's happened thousands of times in Zagreb at the Museum of Broken Relationships, which we visited at the beginning of the show. This is a handmade sweater made with beautiful grey yarn, but a little bit disproportionate and you wonder why is it so.

16:09And then the story goes that the woman who sent it wanted to knit an ultimate sweater for her partner, who could never make up his mind what kind of sweater he wanted, like he said. This is Olinka Wishtica, one of the co-founders of the museum.

16:31She's showing me one of her favourite exhibits, a bizarre sweater donated by a woman who was knitting it for her boyfriend. The relationship went bust. He left her, as she says, for a student of his. But then she set on a mission to finish the sweater with an ever-present glass of wine by her side. After its completion, her friend told her to send it to us. and she knew that it would be an unwearable piece because she kind of reflected his obsessive and decisive personality. So the sweater has the right sleeve. The sleeves are like two metres long. Two metres long. His heart is on the wrong side.

17:20So she's knitted the heart. I love how it says on the thing as well that it looks OK from the front but it's completely unravelling at the back, which is nice.

17:34Every item in the museum is displayed with a number how many days, weeks or years the relationship lasted and the story of its meaning from the person who donated it There are tales of revenge like the woman who cut off all the buttons from her cheating partner's clothes and there are stories of profound sadness The one that really got me was an old bit of ginger donated by someone from Australia whose brother had used it when cooking dinner one night. It ended up being the last meal they ate together as a family because the next day he died in a car crash. A couple of weeks later they found the shriveled piece of ginger that their brother had used the night before he died and they kept the piece of ginger ever since until they donated it to the museum.

18:34Today there are over 4 ,000 objects in the museum's collection, but it all began with a fluffy wind-up toy in the shape of a bunny rabbit.

18:46Now we're in the office and you can see the little white bunny here on the shelf. This is Dražen Grubisic, who co-founded the museum with Olinka. That is actually the trigger that started this project because many, many years ago, Olinka and myself, we were a couple, and then the moment came we were not. So we were sitting in the kitchen having a little discussion about... I think every couple has this discussion. So what are you taking, what am I taking, sharing the things. And we glanced upon a little bunny that was on the floor, which was kind of a pet we didn't have. You know the silly things you do when you're young and you're in love so I would come home exhausted from work I would open the door and then I would spot the bunny marching in circles because it's a wind-up toy and that would immediately bring a smile to my face.

19:52And at that moment imagining to have this bunny somewhere on the shelf while this relationship is no more was really heartbreaking. And then our discussion turns toward, isn't this amazing that something so banal can create such a stream of emotions and it can be so hard on you, while at the same time it doesn't mean anything to anybody else in the world. and so how magical would be if you could kind of tap into these emotions of objects what story they could tell and then I'm an artist, she's a producer so step by step we came to wow it might be a good project to create something that would allow people to sort of get rid of this emotional burden while at the same time preserving it I mean, what I really love about this idea, this museum, is that museums have existed for thousands of years, right?

21:01This idea of treasuring objects because we want to keep them is not a new thing. But your museum kind of does the opposite. It's treasuring the act of giving something away. And so that is kind of, there's a parallel there between, you know, what everybody who's donated to your museum has done, which is I have this object, it means something to me, but I want to give it away is similar to what our listener Kerry is going through he's got these objects that represent something to him and he wants to give them away even though they still mean something to him but this is, it's not just giving away it's sharing I think as well you can see in some of the stories it may be somebody's biggest love that you unfortunately realised 20 years too late that that was the moment and you want to share this with everybody so they may learn something from it.

21:59I don't know if you saw in the museum, we quote Roland Barthes, this French philosopher, and I think he said that today, like, sexuality is much more, like, accepted than sentimentality. We are not supposed to show our emotions. Of course, that has changed with this eye culture when we publish our lives on social media and everywhere, but I think that the museum tries to preserve, I hope, this dignified space where we are not interested in names and tags, but we are interested in something that we all share. The items in the museum come from all over the world, suggesting the urge to project our feelings onto objects is a universal one.

22:50And it's something we start doing from a very early age.

22:58It starts very quickly with familiarity. So they've even done studies where if you show something to somebody subliminally, we prefer that thing, even though we don't remember seeing it. That as humans, the things that are around us most provide comfort because of that stability. This is Mary Dozier, the psychologist you heard earlier in the programme. We also just very early on, our temperament and personality comes out and we start to make preferences for things. Like I know there's a joke about how much two-year-olds like to say no, right? But that's their way of asserting their personality of saying, I am going to make a choice here.

23:35And so I think just as we start to come into ourselves, even as early as a few months old or less, that it's part of forming that identity, that so much of the identity we present to the world is through the objects around us, right, of the choices we make in clothing, the choices we make in the books on our bookshelf. And I think that starts really early on with the choice of teddy bear that you have, right? Okay, so it's partly about familiarity, but it's also because it comes down to identity. It's sort of you choosing to have that toy. That toy is sort of an embodiment of your choices and your identity of who you've kind of decided to be even as a child.

24:13Yes, very much so. A lot of what my research has looked at is the sense of interconnectedness people have between their sense of self and their objects. So social psychologists look at sense of self between a person and another person. But in clinical psychology, we've started thinking about, okay, how does my sense of self actually become projected onto these objects around me? And it can be things that you're currently using or things that were a part of who you were. So a lot of the older adults I work with will hold on to, say, tools from previous jobs. So I have worked with a lot of older adults here in Mississippi who used to, say, use a chainsaw a lot for the woods around their house, which is really great when you're in your 40s, but suddenly you're in your 80s and you're no longer able to do that safely.

25:02But holding on to that chainsaw gives them the sense of I was this person who interacted with the woods around me. And so I think that there can be a sense of, even though we can recall memories, objects can either help us remember things or just serve as this tangible connection to our past. So our listener Kerry had a sort of similar kind of thing in that he used to be a champion figure skater. And he sort of, by his own admission, is not going to do any figure skating anytime soon. And yet he doesn't want to throw away his old ice skates. so that's like a similar sort of thing and that it's an object that is I suppose representing who you used to be absolutely and people even voice that of like if I get rid of this it's like getting rid of a part of me or if it's something that belonged to a loved one right that I can't get rid of this mug because my mother gave it to me and it would be like getting rid of her memory and on the other side we also hold on to things I think out of a sense of hope of who we could be so sometimes people are holding onto that chainsaw because they used to use it but I also see a lot of people acquiring things because they they want to become a quilter or they want to do some big project and if they get rid of it it's their way of saying I I'm giving it and I'm saying that I'm never going to be that person who needs these quilting supplies yeah I mean I've got a sewing machine that I've had for about five years and I am going to use it one day but I literally haven't used it since I bought it as long as I hold on to that sewing machine I'm still in the future potentially somebody who has learned how to you know make their own clothes and make their own upholstery and stuff but if I throw it away it's sort of you're kind of closing off that avenue I have a pasta maker that I used once and realized it was way harder to use than in the pasta making class but someday I will be an expert pasta maker so I need to hold on to it yeah cool okay I believe in you it's gonna happen one day

26:59So right from the beginning, when we're very young children, our attachment to objects is bound up with our identity. Objects connect us to people, places and times in our lives. They can trigger memories and emotions from the past and they can also embody our hopes for the future. Thinking about where your sense of self exists is a strange thing to consider. For me, it feels like it's inside me, in my head. but perhaps it's also spread out across the objects we surround ourselves with, like an old pair of skates. Kerry, thanks for your wonderful, thought-provoking question. Over to you for the credits.

27:43That's it for this episode of Crowd Science from the BBC World Service. The question was from me, Kerry, in Canada. The show was presented by Anand Jakatia and produced by Joe Glanville and Iman Moyne. If you have a question on any science subject and you want the team to investigate, why not email crowdscience at bbc.co.uk. Goodbye.

28:34I'm Simon Jack. I'm Zing Sing. And on Good Bad Billionaire, we're exploring the life and fortune of music megastar Sir Paul McCartney. Macca. As one of the primary songwriters in The Beatles, and with an extensive solo career, his work generates vast and continuous royalty streams. But were song royalties alone enough to break the billion? And earn him the title of the first British billionaire rock star? Find out in Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service. Listen now, search for Good Bad Billionaire wherever you get your BBC podcasts.