Re-examining hope: The roles of agency thinking and pathways thinking

Abstract

A considerable amount of research in hope is driven by Snyder's (1994) model which proposes that hope is positively associated with agency thinking and pathways thinking. However, the current research suggests that hope as understood by the layperson (Hope) is only associated with agency thinking and not with pathways thinking. This was found over four studies using different agency and pathways variables, different Hope variables, different methods, and different cultures. Implications of these findings for Snyder's model are discussed.

Keywords:

• Hope
• Trait agency
• Trait pathways

Acknowledgements

Study 1 was supported by grants to the second author from the National Institute of Mental Health (MH59615) and the John Templeton Foundation.

Special thanks to members of the Positive Emotions and Psychophysiology Laboratory at the University of Michigan, Carol Dweck from Stanford University, Phoebe Ellsworth from the University of Michigan, and Hal Shorey from the University of Kansas.

Notes

¹Due to the larger studies that Studies 1, 2, and 3 were part of, there were some scaling differences between measures. These scaling differences did not affect the results and the measures were converted to range from 0 to 8 if comparisons were made.