Hope Is Not the Same as Optimism

Living with the COVID-19 pandemic and political pressure, what Hongkongers may need most right now is hope for the future. I think we would all agree that hope is a powerful force. Today I would like to share how psychologists understand hope. What exactly does hope consist of? And how does hope differ from optimism?

Hope Theory

According to the Hope Theory proposed by the American positive psychologist Charles Richard Snyder, hope is made up of three parts: goals (Goal), pathway thinking (Pathway Thinking), and agency thinking (Agency Thinking).

Snyder believed that most human behaviour is goal-oriented (Goal-oriented), and that having goals gives the future a sense of direction. Pathway thinking refers to whether a person can devise different routes towards a particular goal, or towards the future they aspire to. Agency thinking refers to a person's confidence and self-motivation in reaching their goals — whether they can sustain their own drive.

Hope needs the interplay of pathway thinking and agency thinking because, on the way to a goal, a person is bound to meet various obstacles. If someone lacks the ability to find more methods, or assumes there is only one way in the world, they will fall into a dead end where they cannot move forward once they hit difficulty — and may even choose to give up. A lack of agency thinking, meanwhile, makes a person doubt their own abilities, making it harder to keep holding on to hope in the face of obstacles.

Pathway thinking and agency thinking influence each other. If a person can think of new ways to pursue a goal, they naturally grow more confident in their own abilities and in the future; and being confident in your abilities, with the drive to push forward, lets you explore more possibilities and strengthens your pathway thinking.

Is hope the same as optimism?

Both hope and optimism (Optimism) matter a great deal for reaching our goals. But think a layer deeper: does an optimistic person necessarily have hope? Does a pessimistic person necessarily lack it? Research has found that the link between hope and optimism is relatively weak. Both affect a person's sense of life satisfaction (Life Satisfaction), but only hope affects students' academic results. So what, exactly, sets hope and optimism apart?

Optimism is commonly understood as "having positive expectations of the future", "believing the future will be good", and "trusting that things will turn out as we hope". Optimism leans more towards expectations of the future, whereas hope emphasises the individual's role and sense of agency. People with hope feel that their own actions can bring about change, and that they themselves matter when it comes to reaching a goal.

A person with hope does not necessarily think the future is bright. People are even better able to show their hope in the midst of adversity. Those with hope can recognise that life will bring difficulties, yet they are able to keep their hope even in hard times, still holding positive expectations of what the future might be and of their own ability to act. Compared with people who are simply optimistic, those with hope have more willpower and more varied ways of reaching their goals.

How do you become a more hopeful person?

Hope Theory does not only describe the different elements of hope; we can also learn from it how to build hope for our lives and our future.

First, hope is not simply an optimistic emotion — its pathway-thinking component involves rational analysis. To meet our personal goals, we need to set out clear plans and carry them through. Because there are bound to be obstacles on the road to success, we need several plans or methods; only by holding a blueprint that points towards the goal can we keep our hope for the future, whether the going is smooth or hard.

Compared with pathway thinking, agency thinking puts more emphasis on the emotional, willpower side of hope. Changing your thinking all at once is admittedly not easy, and a person who lacks hope may simply not have enough of a sense of capability, with little confidence in themselves. We can begin to change with small, easy things; through one success after another, we accumulate experiences of success, come to recognise that our own actions can produce positive results, and strengthen our self-belief and agency thinking.

In closing: hope is the rainbow within the heart

A rainbow forms when white light scatters into light of different colours. Snyder pictured hope as a rainbow, because hope lets people become aware of the future's possibilities. Remember that hope is not merely watching the future unfold, nor a passive wait for success to come; it is the ability to hold a positive attitude towards the future and yourself even when the road ahead is dark.

Hope is only one of the cornerstones of a happy life. TreeholeHK now offers a positive psychology online course that explores the positive side of the human mind through scientific methods, helping you face life's challenges and stress, putting knowledge into practice to bring real change to your life.