User:Hawkma/Hope Theory

Snyder, Irving, and Anderson’s Hope Theory proposes a definition of hope as the perceived capability “to derive pathways to desired goals and motivate oneself via agency thinking to initiate and sustain movement along those pathways.” The theory contradicts long held assumptions of hope’s passive nature, focusing instead on goal-directing thinking and the ability of an individual to utilize pathways thinking (the perceived capacity to find routes to desired goals) and agency thinking (the requisite motivations to use those routes) to accomplish those goals. Pathway and agency thinking interplay and interact with one another in an additive and iterative way, such that increases in one should lead to increases in the other. Thus, pathway and agency feed off each other in goal pursuit thinking, while hope enables both pathways and agency thought. Researchers like Bryant and Cvengros stress that despite their interrelatedness, it is important to conceptualize hope as “separate, positively correlated dimensions of Agency and Pathways, rather than as a unitary construct.” This interaction of agency and pathway thinking carries important implications for understanding the applications of the Hope Theory in cognitive-behavioral therapy and community settings. Furthermore, Snyder et al.’s theory stresses the cognitive/thinking process of hope, rather than the emotional component.

Background

Psychiatrists and psychologists studied hope in the late 1950s and the 1960s with the general and uni-dimensional definitional rubric for hope as positive expectations for goal attainment (Menninger, 1959; Stotland, 1969).

During his career, C.R. Snyder has become the leader for the research and development of the Hope Theory, a current day well accepted and respected theory among positive psychologists that expands on the complexity of hope as a cognitive construct.

Major Theoretical Approaches

Goal Focus An underlying assumption to Snyder et. al’s Hope Theory is that goals are the most basic and elemental guiding structure of human behavior. Snyder says that the goals addressed by the hope theory must be substantial enough in value to motivate behavior and must be attainable and yet contain some degree of uncertainty regarding its realization in order to be adaptable. In order for the proper level of significance and motivation to exist therefore, Hope theory is concerned with goals that are at least of moderate importance and intermediate in their probability of attainment. (Averill, Catlin, & Chon, 1990)

Goals can range from small to large, from the mundane, every day to the important, life-changing decisions. Additionally, goals can include both positive approach and negative avoidance goals. Sub-goals under positive approach goals include 1. Reaching for the first time 2. Sustaining present goal outcomes 3. Increasing that which already has been initiated. Sub goals under the negative avoidance goal include 1. Deterring so that it never appears or 2. Deterring so that its appearance is delayed.

Pathways Thinking Pathways thinking involves the perceived capacity of the ability to find routes to desired goals and tap into a person’s perception of their ability to formulate and strategize plausible and effective goal routes. It’s important when considering pathways to think of flexible and alternative routes so that if an obstacle arises, the individual still feels capable of succeeding and not trapped by a situation or things out of their control.

Agency Thinking Agency thinking refers to the requisite motivations to use those routes. Thus, while pathways thinking is the actual development of the routes, agency thinking is the intrinsic and affirming personal belief of “I can do this” or “I will finish this.” Agency thinking is the mental power behind initiating and sustaining movement along these pathways.

Hope as an Emotion Averill, Catlin, and Chon’s 1990 theory propose that hope is an emotion, but one heavily influenced by cognitions.They argue that hope occurs when goals are 1. At an intermediate level of difficulty and reasonably attainable, 2. Under one’s control, 3. Viewed as being quite important to the individuals who are pursuing them, and 4. Socially and morally seen as being acceptable. This perspective is heavily rooted in the idea that hope is a culturally determined emotion that is highly influenced by the social environment.

Mowrer (1960) describes the antithesis of hope as being the emotion of fear and adopted a behavioral viewpoint on hope, defining hope as “an affective form of secondary reinforcement.”Mowrer builds his theory off the idea that the emotion of hope occurs with the onset of a pleasurable stimulus and just like Skinner’s idea of Behavior Conditioning, Mowrer argues that hope is the anticipatory feelings of pleasure associated with repletion of a certain stimuli.

Hope as a Cognition Instead of thinking of hope as an emotion, scholars such as Erickson, Breznitz, and Gottschalk have all linked the definition of hope with positive expectations with regards to certain types of goals. Erik Erickson defined hope as “the enduring belief in the attainability of fervent wishes, in spite of the dark urges and rages which mark the beginning of existence.”Stotland defined hope as “an expectation greater than zero of achieving a goal.”In short, hope as a cognition is the framework for understanding and anticipating goal outcomes in a positive affect.

How to Measure Hope Empirically

The Adult Hope Trait Scale (AHS) The adult hope scale contains four items that measure pathways thinking, four items that measure agency thinking, and four items that are fillers. Participants respond to each item using a 8-point scale ranging from definitely false to definitely true. Measuring both pathway and agency thinking, as well as an overarching hope score, the scale demonstrates internal and temporal reliability, as well as a high level of validity.

State Hope Scale The State Hope Scale (Snyder et al., 1996) has three agency and three pathway items to which respondents describe themselves in terms of how they are “right now.” Unlike the trait scale that measures for more general attitudes and enduring traits, the State Hope Scale focuses on the present perception of the individuals level of hope and the differing level of hope individuals experience as they pursue different goals. The scale has strong reliability and validity scores.

Children Hope Scale The Children’s Hope Scale is a six item dispositional self- report used for children ages 8-16 that measures agency and pathways approaches. Results suggest that the scale evidences internal consistency, and is relatively stable over retesting. Additionally, the scale exhibits convergent, discriminate, and incremental validity.

Comparison of Hope Theory with Related Models

Optimism

Two theories of thought surrounding optimism include Seligman(1991) and Scheier and Carver (1985, 1987). Seligman’s theory focuses on attribution and suggests that the optimistic attributional style is one that is external, variable, and specific, rather than internal, stable, and global. Snyder argues that this attributional view of optimism and Hope Theory differ in that Hope Theory has a more emphasis on looking towards the future, than just a perception of the current situation.

Scheier and Carver’s theory of optimism is more similar to Snyder’s Hope Theory in its emphasis on people’s generalized outcome expectancies. Both theories are goal-based and involve agency-involved thoughts and pathways, but the Hope Theory stresses the equal importance and emphasis on both agency and pathway thoughts, while Scheier and Carver’s theory primarily focuses on agency-involved thoughts, while only implicitly touching on pathways. Finally, hope theory describes the etiology of emotions, whereas Scheier and Carver explain their theory of optimism under the broader theory of self-regulation.

In his article, “Distinguishing Hope and Optimism: Two Sides of a Coin, or Two Separate Coins?, Bryant and Cvengros tackle the difficult question of where to draw the line in the operational constructs of optimism and hope. After structural equation modeling and close analysis of the extent and source of conceptual overlap and divergence between these two constructs, they developed their argument that hope focuses more directly on personal attainment of specific goals, whereas optimism focuses more broadly on the expected quality of future outcomes in general.

In short, both theories of optimism and hope are frameworks by which to perceive the world, but hope tends to be more future oriented, pathway oriented, and specific to goals, than optimism.

Self-Efficacy

Bandura’s theory of self-efficacy is a goal-directed theory in which situational self-efficacy (agency) is contextualized for each individual’s situation. Outcome expectancies are thought to result from “the assessment of one’s capacity to perform the requisite actions that are inherent in the outcome expectancies.” Though the Hope Theory and Theory of Self-efficacy share many constructional and definitional components, the Hope Theory stresses more analysis of both a person’s agentic and pathways thought, while self-efficacy focuses primarily on agentic thought. Additionally, Hope Theory suggests that a person’s dispositional hope can grow and develop along with state hope so that it is more adaptable for new contexts.

Esteem Theories

Most esteem theories assume that “goal pursuit activities drive the esteem that is experienced” (Hewitt 1998). Assumptions within these theories include an appreciation of human behavior as based in goal-directed actions that carry value for the individual. Research suggests that the hope theory builds off the idea that underlying goal pursuit-related actions result in emotion that are critical for theoretical and practical understandings of how to undo counterproductive patterns of thinking. Research also suggests that hope augments the prediction of several criteria beyond the variance related to self-esteem.

Problem Solving

Like the Hope Theory, there is an explicit emphasis on finding multiple solutions or routes to solving a problem. Hope Theory builds off theories of problem solving, by adding the motivational component of agentic though, which is the mental energy to initiated and sustain movement along the pathway.

Hope and its Relationship with other Performances

Academics

Hope relates to higher scores on subsequent achievement test for grade-school children (Snyder, Hoza, et al., 1997), higher overall grade point averages (GPAs) for high school students (Snyder, Harris, et. al. 1991), and higher semester and overall GPAs for college students (Chang, 1998; Curry, Maniar, Sondag, & Sandstedt, 1999; Curry et al., 1997, Snyder, Harris, et al., 1991).

There correlation between high hope students and academic success seems to exist because with high hope students there is more motivation and drive to succeed (agency thought), as well as greater ability and flexibility in generating multiple pathways to achieving academic success (pathway thinking).

Athletics

Similar to the academic world, a 1997 study by sport psychologist Lewis Curry which looked at Division 1 Track Athletes at seven universities, showed that high-hope individuals tend to be better athletically, even when the variance due to natural athletic ability was removed statistically.The data shows that cognition and thoughts of athletes play a significant role in their performances, not only in establishing confidence in a skill set, but also in persistence in staying with a sport.

Physical Health

One of the major focuses in the field of health psychology is “the promoting and maintaining of good health and preventing, detecting, and treating illness.” Snyder and his colleagues “postulated that higher hope people may use information about physical illness as a pathway for prevention efforts in both a primary and secondary prevention way.”Thus, stating that higher hope individuals are more cognitively aware of potential illnesses and the necessary preventative measures that can be taken to protect the individual. Furthermore, Snyder and his colleagues also have data to prove that after the development of a physical illness, the role of hope would emerge in the context of secondary prevention, in more of a positive coping mechanism role. Various empirical studies reveal not only the development of more hopeful goal-directed cognitions that foster a place for coping, but also encourage individuals to adhere to the medical regimen, believing that if they take control and complete the advised steps, they will indeed improve.

Researchers have found that higher hope is related to better adjustment in coping with severe arthritis (Laird, 1992), major burn injuries (Barnum et al., 1998), spinal cord injuries (Elliott et al., 1991), fibromyalgia (Affleck & Tennen, 1996: Tennen & Affleck, 1999), and blindness (Jackson et al., 1998).

Psychological Adjustment

It has been shown empirically that high-hope individuals have an advantage when it comes to dealing with psychological or physical stress because they are able to think of multiple pathways to an issue or problem, when impediments arise. See studies below about children’s psychological adjustment.

Application

The Role of Hope in Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy The emphasis on pathways and agency for the Hope Theory can foster itself in a clinical therapy session because the Hope Theory supports the idea of not only helping patients reach their goals, but also teaching and helping them to help themselves reach those goals. Hope is a cognitive framework of agency and pathway thinking and behavioral therapy can be applied in each and both of these ideas of thought, so long as the patient’s value system and abilities are taken into consideration. Thus, it is not simply a dispositional trait that some people possess and others don’t, it is a quality/cognitive skill that can be acquired and learned. Additionally, the Hope Theory suggests that if a client is able to establish a relevant sub-goal of the primary treatment, the positive feedback and increase in agency thought will help the patient progress and may catalyze generation of additional pathways for other relevant clinical sub-goals.

Adolescent/Children Suicide is the ultimate expression of hopelessness. In their study, Shatte, Fillham, and Reivich’s look at adolescent suicide as the ultimate expression of hopelessness, defining hopelessness as a lack of control, internal, global, and permanent. The article looks at the Penn Optimism Program (POP), which is designed to instill a sense of hope in children at risk for depression through a process of teaching students how to reframe situations and generate alternative causal beliefs that can refute their current illogical beliefs.

In Hagen et. al’s 2005 study that examined hope, social support, and behavioral problems in 65 children of incarcerated mothers. Through regression analysis of a series of interviews with the children, Hagen found that that hope contributed unique variance to both internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems after social support and stress were controlled. These findings suggest that being confident in one's ability to overcome challenges and having a positive outlook function as protective factors, whereas being less hopeful may place a child at risk for developing adjustment problems. This is valuable information not only in defining and processing the cognitive elements of appraisal associated with hope, but also the future implications or ways in which hope can be continued to be implemented into therapies.

Coping with the Loss of a Loved One Studies show that an adult who loses a loved one is at risk for losing hope. This is probably because our society puts a lot of emphasis on relationships and emphasizes those goals that individuals pursue with their partner. So when an individual loses their partner, they feel debilitated in their ability to not only generate pathways, but also have the agency to complete them.

Looking at coping with the loss of a loved one in the context of goal formation and pathway and agency blocks/barriers to those goals, it is important to note that goals must be flexible and adaptable to the situation, saying that two bereavement responses to losing a loved one are to 1. Rethink one’s goals so as to focus more on the here and now life events, and 2. To value important interpersonal relationships. Snyder also notes the important and value in breaking down larger goals into small sub goals, thus breaking the pathway into more manageable multiple segments that don’t have to all be accomplished at once.

Cognitive Therapy for Depression The Hope Theory’s principle of agency and pathway thought can be applied to the treatment of depression, because it is through the process of turning complaints into solvable problems and the encouragement of a patient to consider multiple ways to solve a problem or move around an obstacle and in essence that they are able to gain insight and perception into more routes that they can take to reach their goals.A common symptom among depression is a lack of feeling capable of changing their situation or the world around them. Hope Therapy helps incorporate an “illusion of control” back into a patient of depression. In this way, Hope Theory, both its view on agency and pathway thinking can be utilized in treatment of depression patients in order to alleviate the downward spiral of low motivation, lack of pursuit of goals, lack of knowledge of pathways and negative affect.

Controversial Topics

False Hope Contrary to misconceptions, that too much hope, or hope founded in unrealistic expectations or groundings is only an illusion, false hope, as the term is coined, has empirically shown to be just as beneficial to individuals as “realistic hope.” Snyder cites popular criticisms of false hope as follows: “that the expectations rest on illusions rather than reality, unsuitable goals are being pursued, and the strategies to achieve the desired goals are poor.”

In his analysis of these criticisms, Snyder argues that while high-hope people do make use of positive illusions to influence their views of reality, high-hope individuals do not engage in blatant reality distortion. While this positive bias can sometimes lead an individual to invest energy and time in efforts that prove to be unfruitful, the general research supports the idea that hope and unrealistic optimistic assessment of a situation reliably correlates with good psychological adjustment. Positive allusions enable and foster a space of agency and control, which in turn provides the motivation and energy needed to actually enact that agency and chance.

Furthermore, Snyder says that the term “false or unsuitable goals” is too subjective because research shows that higher-hope people often do attain and reach lofty and difficult goals (often with smaller, more manageable sub goals) and that they often identify significantly larger numbers of goals, than low-hopers (diversifying their energy and interests in order to be more adaptable).

Finally, Kwon (2000) study suggests that hope is beneficial despite a person’s defense style (or pathway). Therefore, high-hope persons, even when supposedly rooted in “false hope,” have generated many effective routes, especially under high-pressure circumstances.

Conclusions

Snyder’s Hope Theory relies on the idea that goals serve as the underlying motivator for human behavior and defines hope as the combination of the ability to think of multiple and resilient routes to accomplishing those goals (pathway thinking) and the internal motivation and drive to accomplish those goals (agentic thinking). Although similar to other positive psychology models of optimism, self-efficacy, self-esteem, and problem solving, empirical research recognizes hope as its own unique construct and theory. Research has shown the positive correlations associated with high-hope individuals and the way in which hope theory has started to be and can continue to serve an important function within cognitive therapy settings.

See Also

Hope

Optimism

Self-Efficacy

Self-Esteem

Problem Solving

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Positive Psychology

External links

• example.com