Hope
HOPE COPES POSITIVELY WIth life's stress
Hope in the context of the Resilient Warrior study was not religious hope. However, religion and spirituality will be discussed in the section on Total Fitness where religious hope is a positive factor in total well-being. However, you may be thinking, since the researcher (me) is a Christian why didn't I use religious hope in my study? I chose to use a general theory of hope to ensure I could involve as many participants in my study as possible; essentially my research did not focus on religion. Also, when I conducted my research I cloaked my identity as a Navy Commander, Navy Chaplain and Christian in order to prevent research bias such as social desirability. The Resilient Warrior study practiced the highest ethical standards for human participant research; check out the ethics section in my dissertation.
Hope can be found in ancient literature to include philosophy and Biblical writings. The ancient Greeks believed to live in the present one must have a recollection of the past which influenced how a person experienced the here and now— with an expectation, either good or bad, about the future. In ancient Greek mythology Pandora was the first woman on earth, and was given a box in which when she opened it— death and all the evils of the world were released; however, she was able to close the lid leaving one thing in the box—HOPE.
From the Greeks we get our idea of hope as an expectation about the future; however, what we expect about the future depends on our attitude and action. Today we most often define hope as a positive expectation about the future; however, just being positive or optimistic is not enough—hope does require faith and love put in action (check out pages 46-47 of my dissertation and awesome quote by Dr. Karl Menninger).
C. R. Snyder (1995, 1999, 2002) developed a theory of hope that enables individuals to cope with the stresses of life. He defined hope as a process that involves goal setting, the motivation to achieve your goals, the ability to garner the resources to reach your goals, and when an adverse event surprises you (stress) the hopeful person is able to work through adversity and reach their goals. This may sound very simplistic and we know life is not always easy, but this theory is very insightful and can help us get through a difficult life situation. The hope process is more complicated than simple thinking, planning, believing, and achieving. Hope involves more than just thinking; hope is an emotion too.
Hope as an emotion
The following are key lessons on emotions gleaned from two researchers M. Jarymowicz and D. Bar-Tal (2006) who wrote a very insightful article on the dominance of fear over hope. The following may sound very complicated but a better understanding of emotions can help you cope better; especially those striving to cope with very negative or extreme emotions associated with traumatic war experiences. After reading these observations one will see that getting help for emotional suffering is critical for positive well-being.
1. Emotions are unconscious and conscious, biochemical, physiological, affective, cognitive, and behavioral processes. 2. Emotions can produce adaptive or mal-adaptive reactions and responses. 3. Emotions help decode and provide meaning to perceived stimuli. 4. Emotions that are primary can be spontaneous, fast, uncontrolled, and unintentional. 5. Emotions can be automatic reactions. 6. Emotions can be part of the human stress appraisal, evaluation, and decision making processes. 7. Emotions can be low road (limbic system) or high road (cortex) brain functions. 8. Emotions may be localized in left (positive emotions) or right (negative emotions) hemisphere; fear may be right hemisphere oriented, involved in unconscious intuitive information processing; while hope is left hemisphere oriented, involved in conscious rational cognition. 9. Emotions such as fear may be primary emotions produced unconsciously in the limbic system as a protective reaction to negative stimuli and dominate over the conscious secondary positive emotion of hope.
Hope can be measured
Individuals who are hopeful are more likely to cope positively with stress. How hopeful are you? Hope can be measured using the Adult Dispositional Hope Scale (ADHS, Lopez, Snyder, & Pedrotti, 2003). The ADHS purports to measure hope theory as defined in Snyder (1995) as “the process of thinking about one’s goals, along with the motivation to move toward (agency) and the ways to achieve (pathways) these goals” (p. 355). The ADHS measures agency and pathways thinking. Functionally, Snyder noted that individuals who score higher on hope using the ADHS “experience their goals in a phenomenologically more positive fashion” (p. 357). The ADHS is a 12 item self-report measure using an eight point Likert scale with one being definitely false and eight being definitely true. Sample questions include: (a) I can think of many ways to get out of a jam, and (b) My past experiences have prepared me well for my future.
Hope can be STRENGTHENED
Hope is integral in coping with stress, and individuals with higher hope often have better logical problem solving skills which is key for achieving goals. How can you develop hope? Hope is one of the character strengths and virtues that is presented in the section "The Science of Character."
References
Jarymowicz, M., & Bar-Tal, D. (2006). The dominance of Fear over Hope in the life of individuals and collectives. European Journal of Social Psychology, 36, 367-392.
Lopez, S. J., Snyder, C. R., & Pedrotti, J. T. (2003). Hope: Many definitions, meaning and measures. In S. J. Lopez & C. R. Snyder (Eds.), Positive psychology assessment: A handbook of models and measures (pp. 91-107). New York, NY: Oxford.
Snyder, C. R. (1995). Conceptualizing, measuring, and nurturing Hope. Journal of Counseling and Development, 73, 355-360.
Snyder, C. R. (Ed.). (1999). Coping: The psychology of what works. New York, NY: Oxford University.
Snyder, C. R. (2002). Hope theory: Rainbows in the mind. Psychological Inquiry, 13(4), 249-275.