Definition, Quotes, & Tips for Life​

As the good things started to pile up, it became easier to imagine that life would continue to improve. In other words, I grew more hopeful.

Where does hope come from, and how do we cultivate more of it in our lives? Let’s see what psychologists have learned about hope. As with many aspects of our psychology, we will see that the frame of mind we bring to a situation makes a huge difference.

Hope is a state of mind in which we imagine that a certain outcome is possible, and we wish for it to come true (Garrard & Wrigley, 2009). All hope involves these two key ingredients: at least one possible, but uncertain, outcome, and the desire for that outcome to be realized. When we hope, we are looking forward to a hypothetical future scenario with optimism.
 
Hope is interesting enough to psychologists that one such researcher developed what he called Hope Theory (Snyder, 2002). Snyder was interested in how there are emotional and behavioral elements to hope. He agreed that there can be no hope without a goal or goals to which somebody aspires. He added to the mix that hope, as an emotional experience, also drives us into action – in this case down either or both of two paths. 
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• First, hope makes us think about what the pathway is to achieving the goal. How can I get to that hypothetical future? What strategies do I need to use to follow that path? 
• At the same time, being hopeful makes us focus on our own agency. We begin to think about our ability to make movement down that pathway happen. In these ways, we can see that hope is often closely tied to potential or actual action on the part of the hopeful person.

If hope is grounded in the wish that something positive will happen, hopelessness or despair, as the feeling that negative things are certain to happen, is its opposite. We have all either been in a state of despair ourselves or been around somebody who is, so we know that experience: no matter what potentially encouraging information might be available, the despairing person anticipates and sees only pessimistic or negative outcomes on the way.

The concept of hope – and the question of whether it is good, bad, or both – has occupied scholars for a long time (Pleeging et al., 2022). Going all the way back to the ancient Greeks, some people have worried that wishful thinking might keep people from embracing the realities of their lives, while others have noted how, as we previously saw, hope can motivate people into all sorts of positive actions. In much Christian writing, hope can be closely connected to faith and is seen as a virtue. More recently, philosophers have looked at hope as something that can be harnessed for both good and evil by powerful leaders and that can be both delusional and inspiring.

Clearly, hope has been both a divisive topic and a popular one amongst our greatest thinkers for many centuries. I think this is because hope motivates us into action, and therefore what we are hopeful for really matters (Pleeging et al., 2022). Think about every U.S. presidential campaign you have ever witnessed; to some extent, each and every one of them aimed to instill some kind of hope in Americans, whether it was hope for the vision of returning to simpler times or hope for the possibility of a more just and equitable country.

As a therapist, I often see clients who struggle to be hopeful for change. They don’t have a lot of evidence that things can change in the substantial ways that they crave. This is why in therapy, as well as life in general, making the most of little moments of progress or change – seeing them as hopeful – seems to be so important to building motivation and maintaining the will to change.

Don’t believe me that hope is important? The scientific research is pretty clear that having high levels of hope relates to all sorts of positive life outcomes, including overall well-being. First of all, people who are more hopeful seem to be more likely to take action to improve their health (Corn et al., 2020). Whether it is exercising more, smoking less, or changing one’s diet, being hopeful that better health is possible seems to help. Just as encouraging, people high in hope are more likely to learn about and try different strategies to tackle medical issues when they come up.

People higher in hope also seem to be more able to tolerate pain (Snyder, 2002). This may be because they perceive the pain as less intense or because they spend less time thinking about the pain they are experiencing. That makes sense to me – if you are hopeful by nature, you are probably less likely to get lost in thoughts of “this pain is going to last forever” or “I will never feel better.”

People who are more hopeful also seem to handle stressful life events more readily with fewer impacts on their mental health and overall well-being (Valle et al., 2006). For this reason, many psychologists characterize hope as an important psychological strength or tool of resiliency.​

What determines how hopeful we are? Like almost any combination of emotions and thoughts, it is highly dependent on many variables, from our genes to the situation we’re in (Corn et al., 2020). Some people may be naturally more predisposed to being hopeful – my guess is that those people are more likely to be less reactive to their environments, have secure attachment styles, and score lower on measures of neuroticism. But even somebody who is not predisposed to feeling hopeful will probably break into a smile at the sight of a rainbow after a thunderstorm or the sound of children playing and laughing.

One powerful example of hope comes from research into the psychology of minoritized people. People of color in the United States have had to find ways to remain hopeful in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, thanks to systemic oppression and racism (Mosley et al., 2020). This radical hope for a more equitable future, drawing on pride in one’s ancestors and a history of persevering through mistreatment, is what undergirded the Civil Rights Movement and continues to power social justice movements around the country.
 
One scholar suggested that hope usually falls into one or more of four life domains: spirituality, survival, attachment, and mastery (Scioli et al., 2011). Let’s look at an example of each. 
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• An Olympic athlete aspires to completely master their sport – their hope is for mastery of each aspect of their training. 
• A person of faith might hope for ever-growing closeness with the deity or spiritual source that is at the center of their religion. 
• A lost hiker hopes to find the food, water, and shelter they need to survive. 
• And all of us out there on the dating market are hopeful that we will find a reliable, good, and kind partner with whom we can form a meaningful, lasting attachment. 

When we hope that we can achieve these goals, or hope that we can maintain the things we have achieved, that hope keeps us focused on their pursuit or maintenance (Scioli et al., 2011).​

To cultivate hope, you can start by getting a good amount of support, focusing in on what you can control in the situation, and getting ready to recognize how external factors may slow your progress (Heatherton & Nichols, 1994). When people succeed at reaching their goals, they often cite support from others and a willingness to accept that obstacles come up as key components in their success.
 
Using standardized procedures for generating hope may also help us become more hopeful. Psychologists have designed interventions for this purpose, and they often involve carefully reviewing one’s previous successes to understand where one found hope and how one maintained it (Magyar-Moe & Lopez, 2015). These interventions suggest that choosing realistic and flexible goals in the first place is an important way to avoid losing hope. Meeting regularly in groups to track progress toward a goal and identify ways to problem-solve may also help people increase their levels of hope (Cheavens et al., 2006).
 
All this said, for people who are very low in hope, an intervention simply targeting one’s levels of hope may not be effective (Weis & Speridakos, 2011). Instead, people in this situation may benefit more from more intensive psychotherapy.
 
If you are curious about more strategies for increasing the hope you feel, I recommend watching this video:​

• “Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances that we know to be desperate.” — G.K. Chesterton
• “We need never be hopeless because we can never be irreparably broken.” — John Green
• “May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.” — Nelson Mandela
• “Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.” — Epicurus
• “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops at all.” — Emily Dickinson
• “You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming.” — Pablo Neruda
• “We must accept finite disappointment but never lose infinite hope.” — Martin Luther King Jr.

• Cheavens, J., Gum, A., Feldman, D. B., Gum, A., Michael, S. T., & Snyder, C. R. (2006). Hope therapy in a community sample: A pilot investigation. Social Indicators Research, 77, 61–78.
• Corn, B. W., Feldman, D. B., & Wexler, I. (2020). The science of hope. The Lancet Oncology, 21(9), e452-e459.
• Garrard, E., & Wrigley, A. (2009). Hope and terminal illness: False hope versus absolute hope. Clinical Ethics, 4(1), 38-43.
• Heatherton, T.F., & Nichols, P.A. (1994). Personal accounts of successful versus failed attempts at life-change. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 20, 664–675.
• Magyar-Moe, J. L., & Lopez, S. J. (2015). Strategies for accentuating hope. In S. Joseph (Ed.), Positive psychology in practice: Promoting human flourishing in work, health, education, and everyday life (2nd ed., pp. 483–502). Wiley
• Mosley, D. V., Neville, H. A., Chavez‐Dueñas, N. Y., Adames, H. Y., Lewis, J. A., & French, B. H. (2020). Radical hope in revolting times: Proposing a culturally relevant psychological framework. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 14(1), e12512.
• Murphy, E. R. (2023). Hope and well-being. Current Opinion in Psychology, 101558.
• Pleeging, E., van Exel, J., & Burger, M. (2022). Characterizing hope: an interdisciplinary overview of the characteristics of hope. Applied Research in Quality of Life, 17(3), 1681-1723.
• Polivy, J., & Herman, C. P. (2000). The false-hope syndrome: Unfulfilled expectations of self-change. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 9(4), 128-131.
• Scioli, A., Ricci, M., Nyugen, T., & Scioli, E. R. (2011). Hope: Its nature and measurement. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 3(2), 78-97.
• Snyder, C. R. (2002). Hope theory: Rainbows in the mind. Psychological Inquiry, 13(4), 249-275.
• Valle, M. F., Huebner, E. S., & Suldo, S. M. (2006). An analysis of hope as a psychological strength. Journal of School Psychology, 44(5), 393-406.