Hope as a psychiatric variable

Abstract

PROBLEMIn his recent book, The Psychology of Hope, Stotland(3) presented 'ihopefl as a shorthand term for an expectation about goal attainment: hopefulness referred to high expectancies and hopelessness to low expectancies of success. While he focused on the level of perceived probability of goal attainment as the core variable, his discussion also attended to the perceived importance of the goal. He viewed hopefulness as a factor in adaptive action and positive affect and hopelessness as involved in maladaptive behavior and negative affect. I n brief, mental illness was associated with hopelessness, and therapy was understood as the restoration of hopefulness.I n his book Stotland presents a theoretical account of hope and offers a broad spectrum of clinical and experimental studies in support of his theory. He views hopefulness as a construct or mediating process that ties together antecedent and consequent events. While the theoretical constructs are promising, Stotland's strategy is vulnerable in that it is based on after-the-fact interpretations of previous studies rather than on original research.The present study is designed to test empirically aspects of the theory concerned with psychiatric status and hopefulness. An additional purpose is to introduce the Hope Scale, a self-report instrument based on Stotland's theoretical constructs, and to present preliminary reliability and validational data for the scale. The Hope Scale is designed to measure both perceived importance and perceived probability of attaining desirable goals. Stotland did not include selfreport data in his book and repeatedly expressed skepticism about such data. However, an extensive literature in decision theory deals with such issues as perceived importance and perceived probability, and there is evidence to suggest that the individual's subjective estimates are an efficient way to assess underlying subjective probabilities @).The present study examines several hypotheses generated from Stotland's theory: (1) that psychopathology is associated with lower estimates of perceived probability of goal attainment; (2) that the lower the perceived probability of god attainment and the higher the importance of the goal, the more the individual will experience anxiety ; and (3) that effective treatment serves to increase the perceived probability of goal attainment. METHOD?'he Hope Scale. A list of 20 future goals was compiled. Each goal was focused, but not situation-specific, and the list covered a spectrum of goals common in our society:1. 3. 4.Have good emotional health. .6. Have good bodily health. 7.Have enough money for basic needs. Be seen as attractive in my looks, dress and grooming. Have a good relationship with my father.See my children turn out well.Have a satisfactory leisure life.

The Development of the Solution Building Inventory

“…Several scales exist measuring the concept of hope (Erickson, Post, & Paige, 1975;Herth, 1991;Snyder et al, 1991;Staats & Stassen, 1985). For the current study, the Dispositional Hope Scale (DHS) was selected to measure the concept of hope due to its internal reliability and its construct validity.…”

Development of a core confidence-higher order construct.

“…Hope research has a long tradition in clinical psychology related to topics of hopelessness and mental illness (Erickson, Post, & Paige, 1975), but there has been little research on hope in work contexts. Perhaps indirectly related to work, hope has been found to be positively related to academic and athletic success (Curry, Snyder, Cook, Ruby, & Rehm, 1997;Onwuegbuzie & Snyder, 2000), mental health (Kwon, 2000), and survival beliefs (Range & Penton, 1994).…”

Contemporary theories of depression: Critique and comparison.

“…Data indicating that depressed persons tend to be hopeless (cf. Erickson, Post, & Paige, 1975;Gottschalk, 1974;Minkoff, Bergman, Beck, & Beck, 1973;Prociuk et al, 1976) are clearly consistent with Beck's theory (a "negative view of the future"). These findings may appear not to be predicted by the helplessness model, which does not claim that the depressed person expects the worst to happen, only that he believes he has no control over what does happen.…”