Hope is the belief that your future will be better than your past, AND your desire to make it so

People with higher hope report lower anxiety (Lin et al., 2024) and view life as more meaningful compared to people with lower hope (Edwards et al., 2025) with research suggesting that hope can act as a protective layer (Arnau et al., 2007) and help you to embrace ‘dignity in moving ahead, whatever the challenge’ (Lopez, 2014:128). Therefore, understanding hope and its dynamics is imperative to effective emotional management.

Even though the word hope is often synonymously used in everyday language with the meaning of a well-meaning wish or optimism, diving past the surface into its scientific meaning reveals that hope holds far more significance (Snyder, 2003).

Hope Theory

C. Rick Snyder is credited with the development of hope theory, a scientific view of hope. In the ‘Handbook of Hope’ he proposes that

hope is the sum of perceived capabilities to produce routes to desired goals, along with the perceived motivation to use those routes (Snyder, 2000:8).

Hope theory proposes three foundational elements to hope, shown in detail in Table 3: goals, pathways (waypower) and agency (willpower) (Gwinn and Hellman, 2018).

Table 1. Hope Theory in Practice. (Gallagher and Lopez, 2018; Gwinn and Hellman, 2018; Lige, 2025; Snyder, 2000).

Goal/Desired Outcome	Pathways/Waypower	Agency/Willpower
Exploratory Question: ‘What do you want?’	Exploratory Question: ‘What is the commitment you must make to you to achieve what you want?’	Exploratory Question: ‘What will you do differently to achieve what you want?’
Articulating the goal becomes the starting point to achieving a desired outcome	Pathways thinking supports pursuit of the set goal	Agency is the motivational factor to continuously work towards the goal
A goal exists on a continuum of both uncertainty and attainability	Waypower creates the shift from seemingly impossible to possible	Willpower is the catalyst that transforms hope from theory into practice

 

Hope – Emotion or Trait?

While there is scientific agreement that hope is both malleable (Feldman and Dreher, 2012; Gwinn and Hellman, 2018) and measurable (Feldman and Jazaieri, 2024; Snyder et al., 1991), the same cannot be said about if hope should be classified as trait or emotion.

The view that hope is an emotion is supported by studies that lean into appraisal theory (Cohen-Chen and Pliskin, 2025) and through the development and validation of the ‘Trait Emotion Hope Scale (TEHS)’ (Feldman and Jazaieri, 2024). Hope as an emotion is considered a ‘forward-oriented positive emotion’ (Petersen et al., 2009:72).

The perspective that hope is a cognitive trait is supported through numerous studies in psychology (Day et al., 2010; Corrigan and Schutte, 2023) and sociology (Cook and Cuervo, 2019; Gili and Mangone, 2023).

The answer however, maybe more complex than choosing one over the other. Snyder’s refined Elaborated Hope Theory proposes a cognitive-affective interplay involving both emotion and trait coming together in influencing goal advancement (Feldman and Jazaieri, 2024).

Losing and Raising Hope

Hope exists along a hope continuum (Rodriguez-Hanley and Snyder, 2000) consisting of four stages: ‘hope, rage/anger, despair, and apathy/hopelessness’. As you move across the hope continuum freely, and sometimes experience it cumulatively, you may experience the accompanying emotions simultaneously (Gwinn and Hellman, 2018).

The first stage, hope, allows you to move towards your goals (Rodriguez-Hanley and Snyder, 2000). The next stage, rage/anger, is experienced when your goals are blocked, but remain attainable, and possibly adjustable (ibid). The emotion of anger is triggered when you feel that you are treated unfairly, or that your goals are obstructed (Ekman and Ekman, 2016). The third stage, despair, is marked by an inability to find pathways to your goal or to gather up enough willpower to pursue the goal despite obstacles (Rodriguez-Hanley and Snyder, 2000). The emotion of despair, which is rooted in the basic emotion of sadness, is triggered by loss, and can require you to pause, and possibly communicate the need for help from others (Ekman and Ekman, 2016). If no solution within yourself, or with the help of others is found in this stage, or if continuous destructive feedback or interference from others is received, you will eventually reach the fourth and final stage, apathy/hopelessness (Rodriguez-Hanley and Snyder, 2000). With no possible path to the goal and no more motivation to re-goal, you reach a state of apathy, and the goal directed activities seize as you enter a state of hopelessness (ibid).

When hope transforms into apathy, a state of giving up is reached, which may last for a short while, or for the rest of your life (Rodriguez-Hanley and Snyder, 2000). When this occurs, it is critical to remember the malleability of hope (Feldman and Dreher, 2012).

Just as hope can decline, it is possible to raise hope levels. This holds true even when you have reached the stage of apathy/hopelessness. While it is possible for you to raise your hope levels on your own, one of strongest predictors of successfully increasing and maintaining hope is social support (Ebright and Lyon, 2002; Krafft, 2023). In addition, the personal character quality of trust in yourself and others plays a key role in increasing hope (Krafft, 2023; Lige, n.d.).

Furthermore, studies indicate higher levels of character strength development to be associated with higher levels of hope (Datu, 2021; Jason et al., 2016).

You can give hope to another person who struggles or may not have the capacity at all to raise their hope on their own. Casey Gwinn and Chan Hellman describe this concept as ‘Hope as a Social Gift’ (2018:161).

References

Arnau, R.C., Rosen, D.H., Finch, J.F., Rhudy, J.L., Fortunato, V.J. (2007). ‘Longitudinal Effects of Hope on Depression and Anxiety: A Latent Variable Analysis.’ Journal of Personality, 75(1) pp. 43–64. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2006.00432.x 

Datu, J.A.D. (2021). ‘Beyond Passion and Perseverance: Review and Future Research Initiatives on the Science of Grit.’ Frontiers in Psychology, 11:545526. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.545526 

Day, L., Hanson, K., Maltby, J., Proctor, C., Wood, A. (2010). ‘Hope Uniquely Predicts Objective Academic Achievement above Intelligence, Personality, and Previous Academic Achievement.’ Journal of Research in Personality, 44(4) pp. 550–553. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2010.05.009 

Ebright, P.R., Lyon, B. (2002). ‘Understanding Hope and Factors That Enhance Hope in Women With Breast Cancer.’ Oncology Nursing Forum, 29(3) pp. 561–568. https://doi.org/10.1188/02.ONF.561-568 

Edwards, M.E., Booker, J.A., Cook, K., Miao, M., Gan, Y., King, L.A. (2025). ‘Hope as a meaningful emotion: Hope, positive affect, and meaning in life.’ Emotion, 25(6) pp. 1365–1380. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0001513 

Ekman, P., Ekman, E. (2016). The Ekmans’ Atlas of Emotions. [Online] http://atlasofemotions.org/ 

Feldman, D.B., Dreher, D.E. (2012). ‘Can Hope be Changed in 90 Minutes? Testing the Efficacy of a Single-Session Goal-Pursuit Intervention for College Students.’ Journal of Happiness Studies, 13 pp. 745–759. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-011-9292-4 

Feldman, D.B., Jazaieri, H. (2024). ‘Feeling Hopeful: Development and Validation of the Trait Emotion Hope Scale.’ Frontiers in Psychology, 15:1322807. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1322807  

Gallagher, M.W., Lopez, S.J. (2018). The Oxford Handbook of Hope. Oxford University Press.

Gili, G., Mangone, E. (2023). ‘Is a Sociology of Hope Possible? An Attempt to Recompose a Theoretical Framework and a Research Programme.’ The American Sociologist, 54 pp. 7–35. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12108-022-09539-y 

Gwinn, C., Hellman, C. (2018). Hope Rising: How the Science of HOPE Can Change Your Life. Newburyport: Morgan James Publishing.

Jason, L.A., Stevens, E., Light, J.M. (2016). ‘The Relationship of Sense of Community and Trust to Hope.’ Journal of Community Psychology, 44(3) pp. 334–341. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcop.21771 

Krafft, A.M. (2023). Our Hopes, Our Future: Insights from the Hope Barometer. Springer Nature.