Revisiting hope’s third pillar: Mattering, spirituality, and social connectedness among financially marginalized households

ABSTRACT

While hope is an established strength within the catalog of positive psychology virtues and a theoretically established concept in economic development (Lybbert & Wydick, 2018), little applied research has considered the role of positive social institutions in maintaining hope under duress, especially among financially marginalized populations. Mattering is a social-psychological construct defined as an awareness that we are a significant part of the world around us (Elliott, Kao, & Grant, 2004). The authors tested the relationship between hope, spirituality, and three-dimensions of mattering (awareness, importance, and reliance), with adults experiencing income volatility while participating in an urban economic mobility intervention. Results indicate that subjects experiencing economic marginalization were more hopeful when they felt others chose to rely on them, even after taking personal spirituality into account. These findings suggest the importance of relationships and specific types of social connectedness in the expression of hope for economically marginalized individuals.

KEYWORDS:

• Hope
• mattering
• poverty
• financial strain
• human development

Declaration of interest statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported through an evaluation grant received from the Pascale Sykes Foundation.