Charles
Snyder, Ph.D, one of the first developers of positive psychology, embellished
upon the overlaying topic of “hope” relaying its subject matter within a
psychological construct. Snyder created his “hope theory” while on sabbatical
from the University of Kansas. Instead of finding evidence in a book in the
library, he was inspired to observe people and interact with them. Through his
observations, Snyder was able to determine his own definition of
"hope"; “Hope is the sum of the mental willpower and waypower that
you have for your goals”Snyder continues his definition with these 3 underlying concepts:
- Goals: “Goals are objects, experiences, or outcomes that we imagine and desire in our minds." Snyder determines that “the goals involving hope fall somewhere between an impossibility and a sure thing.”
- Willpower: “Willpower is the driving force in hopeful thinking” (pg.9) Willpower draws on the perception of our desired goal as well as one’s mental energy. It also depends on how well we understand our goal. Within psychotherapy, techniques are used to hone in on one’s desires and wishes, on how to focus on our goals, on how to obtain or attain them, “…based on tacit knowledge."
- Waypower: “Waypower reflects the mental plans or road maps that guide hopeful thought” There are important versus less important goals that play a part in one’s ability to plan through a goal, to map out a plan. Snyder says that hope is the “mental willpower and waypower for goals” Research has found that “persons with willpower thinking may not have waypower thoughts to their goals”.
Measuring hope
Several researchers,
after defining their concept of hope, have devised ways of how to measure the
actual psychological construct. Snyder’s proposed “Hope Scale” measures a
person’s intended succession in congruence to their goals. Overall, their
determination to achieve their goal is their measured hope.
Fibel and
Hale measure hope by combining Snyder’s Hope Scale with their own Generalized
Expectancy for Success Scale (GESS) to empirically measure hope.
In Snyder’s
book, “Hope Theory”, a differentiation between adult-measured hope and
child-measured hope is given. The adult Hope Scale by Snyder contains 12
questions; 4 measuring ‘pathways thinking’, 4 measuring ‘agency thinking’, and
4 that are simply fillers. Each subject responds to each question using an
8-point scale.
Hope versus optimism
The
difference between hope and optimism: hope entails pathways and thoughts to an
intended goal. Optimism leads one to “expect the best, but it does not
necessarily provide any critical thinking about how we are going to arrive at
this improved future”.
Snyder says
that “we can best understand emotion and self-esteem as a by-product of how
effective we are in the pursuit of goals”.
Dr. Barbara Frederickson states that, “Because
positive emotions arise in response to diffuse opportunities, rather than
narrowly focused threats, positive emotions momentarily broaden people’s
attention and thinking, enabling them to draw on higher-level connections and a
wider-than-usual range of percepts or ideas through cognitive, psychology,
physical, or social resources”. Frederickson is explaining hope in a moment of
great need. With the sense of hope come positive emotions such as happiness and
joy, courage, and empowerment. She describes these “positive emotions” as
coming from four different areas of one’s self: from a cognitive,
psychological, social, or physical perspective.
No comments:
Post a Comment