The social cognition of hope

ABSTRACT

Hope is a social cognition that involves personal agency and creative thinking about how to achieve an individual goal through interpersonal communication. Regression results show that social cognition skills differ in their effect on a person’s hope. Social sensitivity and situational understanding both predict hope. Interestingly, perceived skill in social expression does not. These results suggest that communication training designed to facilitate hope is more likely to be effective when focused on active listening and social situational understanding than on articulate personal self-expression designed to influence or persuade.

KEYWORDS:

• Hope
• interpersonal communication
• social cognition
• social cognitive skills

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

John C. Sherblom

John C. Sherblom (Ph.D., University of Maine) is Professor Emeritus of Communication and Journalism at the University of Maine.

Laura R. Umphrey

Laura R. Umphrey (Ph.D., University of Arizona) is Associate Dean of the College of Health and Human Services and Professor of Communication Studies at Northern Arizona University.