THE HOPE EFFECT

Given the worrying state of the world today and in light of the recent events in our own homeland, is being hopeful a wise or realistic way to live our lives? Absolutely, say the experts, as without hope, life would be unthinkable and our sense of hopeles

With the news dominated by terrorism, natural disasters, financial corruption, political upheaval and other tragedies, it’s easy to understand why people might feel hopeless. Given the state of our world, is hope even a realistic concept? Research says yes. And hope is more than just airy-fairy platitudes that everything will work out. Nor is it blind faith or vague desire, like hoping the weather will be fine this weekend.

Hope is necessary for getting through tough times, but it also has applications for everyday life. It is associated with numerous positive outcomes, including greater happiness, improved academic achievement and even lowered risk of death. Research suggests that almost anyone can learn to be more hopeful. A person with hope has the will and determination to achieve their goals, and a set of strategies to reach them.

HOPEFUL FACTS

Hope is hard to define, but an article by the American Psychological Association states that many psychologists favour the definition of the late Charles R. Snyder, PhD, a pioneering hope researcher. In his model, hope has three components – goals, agency and pathways. Goals are the things you want to achieve – like getting a new job or improving a relationship. Agency is the motivation and ability to reach those outcomes. Pathways are what you use to get there – like attending job interviews or having relationship counselling. Hope and optimism are closely related. Sydneybased psychotherapist Charlotte Stapf defines hope as “the ability to, and action of, looking for positive outcomes or forming visions of the future where things turn out alright”.

She explains that optimism involves having hope and believing that what you hope for will come to fruition. In contrast, “a pessimist will look at hopeful things and dismiss them as unlikely,” she says.

“They might still be able to see that there are possibilities of things turning out alright – however, their automatic thoughts [mean they believe] it’s not likely to happen.”

Tali Sharot is Director of the Affective Brain Lab, and Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London. She has researched what is known as “the optimism bias” – which is the difference between a person’s expectation and the actual outcome. If expectations are better than reality, the bias is optimistic. If reality is better than expected, the bias is pessimistic.

This definition allows optimism to be measured by recording a person’s expectations before an event and then comparing them with the outcomes. Estimates show that about 80 per cent of the population have an optimism bias. Most people, for example, expect to get more enjoyment from a holiday than they do. Students expect to start on higher salaries than they end up receiving. People even tend to be more optimistic than realistic, though they are oblivious to this fact. Newlyweds, for example, when asked about their likelihood of getting divorced, estimate it at zero per cent, despite the divorce rate in the western world being about 40 per cent.

Moreover, people tend to be optimistic about themselves and their families, but not about others. For example, 75 per cent of British people report optimism about the future of their own families, but only 30 per cent said they felt families in general are faring better than a few generations ago.

GETTING REAL ABOUT HOPE

The optimism bias is widespread across age, gender and culture – but, given the state of the world, is being hopeful even realistic? “Absolutely,” says Stapf. Without it, she explains, life would be “unthinkable”.

Lack of hope may even be associated with high rates of suicide. A 2015 study published in the journal PLOS One explored the relationship between hope, hopelessness, and suicidal ideation. They found that hope can act as buffer against the impact of hopelessness on suicidal ideation, adding that inducing hope in people may be a promising avenue for suicide prevention.

Without hope, “it would be an excruciatingly painful life, only ever waiting and expecting and hence cocreating more pain,” Stapf says. “We have to be able to believe that things will be okay. Probably not wonderful, definitely not perfect – but okay.”

Not everyone has a favourable view of hope. Dr Laura Dabney, a psychotherapist who runs a coaching practice in Virginia Beach in the US, says, “There are undercurrents in our society that link being hopeful with [being] naïve, reckless – or, worse, ‘crazy’. Therefore, whether hope is seen as beneficial or not is often dependent on the outcome.”

“Some people are dead-set on avoiding the letdown when their hoped-for outcome did not occur. They believe that they’ll feel ‘worse’ if they get their hopes up,” she says. “Thus, to stay rooted in pessimism is a protective factor, a ‘defence’, in their mind. It’s not inherently a bad thing to be not hopeful, but to consistently fight hopeful feelings can lead to emotional and relationship problems.

“In a lot of therapy cases, I spend time helping people understand that you can’t avoid future hurt by staying rooted in pessimism and it is far more emotionally healthy to accept the feelings of hope and despair as they arise and attempt to understand instead of bury them.”

hope can act as buffer against suicidal ideation.

BENEFITS OF HOPE

While it might seem sensible to avoid disappointment by having low expectations, Sharot notes in her TED talk that people with high expectations consistently feel better. This is because how we feel depends on how we interpret events – whether it’s getting fired or winning a contract.

Psychologists Margaret Marshall and John Brown studied students with high and low expectations. They found that when students with high expectations succeed, they attribute it to their ability. Hence, they assume they will continue to be successful. On the other hand, when they fail, they blame it on something external, like the exam being unfair.

Conversely, when students with low expectations succeed, they assume the test was easy, and that reality will catch them out next time. When they fail, they attribute it to being dumb.

Moreover, anticipation itself is pleasurable. Take the thrill of the build-up to your wedding, for example, or that long-awaited holiday. Research has proven that anticipation is part of the pleasure we derive from an experience. In one study, students were asked how much they would pay for a passionate kiss with a celebrity if they could have it now or wait for it for up to 10 years. They found that students would pay the most for a kiss in three days’ time – as it gave them a chance to anticipate where the kiss would happen, and how it would feel.

A bias towards positive outcomes is good for our wellbeing. People with mild depression don’t have a bias when they think about their future – they’re more realistic than ‘healthy’ people. And those with major depression tend to have a pessimism bias.

Stapf notes that some people have a negative internal dialogue that makes them rehearse bad outcomes. If going for a job interview, for example, you might think, ‘I won’t get this job, they won’t like me’. This can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, as the negative thoughts put you in a defensive stance that makes other people less likely to warm to you.

“That’s where hope is our way of co-creating a positive outcome,” Stapf says. “If you go in hopeful, then you come across in a different way. And hopeful is not blindly optimistic, it’s not ‘I’m the best in the world’. It’s, ‘I can see how this could work and I’m going to focus on that’.”

If you can’t imagine a positive future, you can’t create one, Stapf explains. “If you can see something

– if you can believe in it – you’re way more likely to make it happen by taking the steps towards it.”

Studies have confirmed these practical benefits of hope. A 2018 review published in PSYCH journal examined 23 papers exploring the interaction of hope with academic and work variables. Overall, they found that hope plays a predictive role in academic and job performance and was also positively associated with task accomplishment and wellbeing.

In one study, researchers found that hope was related to a higher GPA in college students. In another, participants who were instructed to think hopefully were better at making remote associations, generated more ideas, and added more details to their ideas. A review published in 2017 in Frontiers in Psychology looked at the role of optimism and hope in chronic disease. Researchers found evidence that people with greater optimism and hope engage in healthier behaviours, and that this contributes to chronic disease treatment.

POSITIVE STRATEGIES

The good news is, it’s possible to become more hopeful. Stapf, a selfconfessed pessimist, says that it starts with self-awareness. “When I become aware that I’m looking at everything through my dark pessimist glasses, I can stop and choose to take them off and say, ‘Okay, what’s the other side that I’m choosing not to see here? What’s the good stuff?’”

She adds that nobody ever looks objectively at any situation, because our automatic thought processes take over. But awareness means we can choose to view situations differently.

“You can take off those glasses and go, ‘Look at the resilience, look at the obstacles that this person has overcome – look at all the good they are doing around them even though they are damaged’,” Stapf states.

Once you’re aware of your tendencies, you can choose what you are going to focus on. And this is true even for terrible natural and human disasters such as the Christchurch terrorist attacks, she says, which can actually bring out the best in people – like rallying to provide practical help and sending messages of support.

She notes that, if you look, you will see things like people coming together to stand against racism and violence or finding solutions to environmental problems.

“It really depends on your focus,” Stapf explains. “If you focus on good things that are happening right now, you can be hopeful, and you should be hopeful.”

A GOOD BALANCE

Dabney believes that as a society, we tend to oversimplify things, such as ‘hope is good’ and ‘despair is bad’. Clinically, both can have positive and negative outcomes, she says.

“For instance, not being too hopeful can lead to resiliency – and being very hopeful can lead to amazing turn-around stories. In general, it’s far more helpful to understand your hope and despair as opposed to trying to force yourself into all one or the other.”

Unrealistic optimism can lead to risky behaviours, with potentially disastrous consequences such as total financial and relationship ruin. In her TED talk, Sharot notes that the key is knowledge. Becoming aware of our biases doesn’t change them, but allows us to put plans in place to help protect ourselves from unrealistic optimism – while still remaining hopeful.