The Science of Hope

Can hope be taught? Researchers are measuring hope and testing interventions to understand how it can be developed as a skill.

01

What is hope?

The question becomes more specific when we consider something we want to accomplish or preserve: completing an education, maintaining a relationship, continuing to work or participating in decisions about our health. Hope research examines how people understand those possibilities and their capacity to pursue them. ^{2, 7}

Consider someone who wants to continue studying while caring for a family member. Part-time study or remote participation might offer different routes. The person’s perceived ability to begin and sustain that work is another component of hope. Whether tuition is affordable and another person is available to provide care determines which options can actually be used.

One influential account, developed by psychologist C. R. Snyder and colleagues, describes hope through goals, agency and pathways. Goals are outcomes a person values. Agency is the perceived capacity to initiate and sustain movement toward them. Pathways thinking is the perceived capacity to generate and use workable routes toward those goals. ^{1, 2, 3}

Figure 1. A simplified illustration of Snyder's hope theory. Agency and pathways influence one another during goal pursuit. Progress, barriers and emotional responses provide feedback that can change the route, the goal or the perceived capacity to continue. Original Help Me Hope illustration based on Snyder and colleagues, 1991, and Snyder, 2002.

In this account, hope differs from optimism, which generally concerns expecting favorable outcomes. Hope concerns how people think about pursuing what they value. It does not require certainty that an outcome will be good. A goal may concern years ahead, the coming week or a single decision. ²

This is one scientific account of hope. Other approaches examine its emotional, relational and existential dimensions, including connection with others and orientation toward the future. Understanding which account a study uses is essential to understanding its findings. ^{4, 7}

02

How researchers study it

Researchers use measures of hope to investigate how it relates to people’s experiences, whether it changes and whether an intervention contributes to that change. The choice of measure depends on the question being asked.

The Adult Hope Scale assesses relatively enduring goal-directed thinking. The State Hope Scale assesses current agency and pathways. Feeling more able to pursue a goal today does not necessarily indicate a lasting change in hope. Both scales rely on self-report: they describe perceived capacities, rather than directly measuring available resources or daily functioning. ^{1, 3}

Figure 2. From responses to a hope score. An illustrative example using the eight-point Adult Hope Scale. Statement, response options and scoring follow the published questionnaire; the example responses are hypothetical.

Other instruments capture different aspects of hope. The Herth Hope Index includes future orientation, positive readiness and expectancy, and interconnectedness. Results from different measures should therefore be interpreted in relation to what each instrument assesses. ⁴

A hope score cannot explain someone’s circumstances on its own. A person may feel ready to act and identify several routes while lacking the money, services or support needed to use them. Scores should not be treated as measures of effort or substitutes for understanding those conditions.

03

What the evidence tells us

Hope research spans learning, work, relationships, psychological adjustment and health. Its scope includes ordinary aspirations as well as difficult circumstances. Much of the research examines associations: whether differences in measured hope accompany differences in another experience or outcome. ^{2, 7}

A 2023 meta-analysis combining 40 studies found that higher agency and pathways scores were associated with fewer symptoms of depression and anxiety. The strength of those relationships varied substantially across studies. The findings do not establish that increasing hope would reduce symptoms. ⁵

A separate meta-analysis published in the March 2026 issue of the Journal of Clinical Psychology examined 11 longitudinal studies involving 2,318 participants. Higher initial hope was associated with lower subsequent anxiety. Because the estimates did not consistently account for initial anxiety, the analysis could not establish that hope produced symptom improvement. ⁶

Research on subjective well-being also finds relationships with hope, with results depending on the dimensions being measured. These findings raise several possibilities: hope may influence engagement and coping, people’s experiences may influence their hope, and resources or relationships may affect both. Studies need to distinguish among these explanations. ^{5, 6, 7}

Research detail: associations with depression and anxiety

Published associations between hope components and symptoms, replotted from Corrigan and Schutte, 2023. Dots show pooled correlations; lines show 95% confidence intervals. Results varied substantially across studies. These are associations, not estimates of what would happen if a person increased their hope.

The chart reports pooled associations, not treatment effects. Confidence intervals describe uncertainty around the estimates and do not predict an individual’s outcome. See sources 5 and 6.

04

Can hope be strengthened?

Intervention studies suggest that measured hope can increase. Programs have used practices such as identifying goals a person values, planning manageable steps and developing alternative approaches. The research question is which practices help, for whom, and whether gains persist beyond the intervention. ⁸

A 2011 meta-analysis reviewed 27 studies involving 2,154 participants. Across the studies reporting hope outcomes, the average improvement was small. Life satisfaction also improved slightly, but the review did not establish a reliable overall reduction in psychological distress. The review combined different study designs, including uncontrolled studies, and identified evidence of publication bias. ⁸

A small randomized study published in 2024 evaluated a three-week online hope intervention. The authors reported improvement in hope among participants with lower initial positive affect. Its short follow-up and comparison with a no-intervention group leave questions about durability and which elements produced the benefit. ⁹

Strengthening hope also requires attention to circumstances. Identifying an alternative can reveal a need for financial assistance, accessible information, care or institutional change. Helping someone think of a route does not make that route available. Reduced hope under severe constraints should never be treated as individual failure. ¹⁰

Figure 3. Change in hope scores in a four-week pilot study. Study details and limitations ↓

Goals themselves may change. When an outcome becomes unattainable, a person may direct effort toward something else they value. During progressive illness, for example, goals may concern comfort, communication or participation in decisions. Hope research can examine that adjustment without assuming that hope requires confidence in recovery. ²

05

Advancing the science of hope

The next questions concern how hope develops, what sustains it and how it can be rebuilt. Research needs to test interventions against appropriate alternatives, follow people long enough to assess durability and examine outcomes beyond a hope score. These include what people can do in daily life and the support they can access.

For Help Me Hope, these questions guide data-informed education and support, including the development and evaluation of programs, apps and tools. Our work connects research with practical questions about how people identify options, feel able to act and sustain that capacity as circumstances change. Our current focus includes healthcare, within a field that extends across education, work, relationships and daily life.

Advancing the science of hope requires understanding both people’s perceived capacities and the conditions in which they act. The task is to establish which forms of support strengthen hope, whether those changes last and whether they improve people’s lives.

Sources

1. Snyder and colleagues (1991). The will and the ways: Development and validation of an individual-differences measure of hope. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60(4), 570–585.
2. Snyder (2002). Hope Theory: Rainbows in the Mind. Psychological Inquiry, 13(4), 249–275.
3. Snyder and colleagues (1996). Development and validation of the State Hope Scale. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70(2), 321–335.
4. Herth (1992). Abbreviated instrument to measure hope: Development and psychometric evaluation. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 17(10), 1251–1259.
5. Corrigan and Schutte (2023). The relationships between the hope dimensions of agency thinking and pathways thinking with depression and anxiety: A meta-analysis. International Journal of Applied Positive Psychology.
6. Richardson, Long, and Gallagher (2026). Hope and Anxiety: A Meta-analytic Review. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 82(3), 227–247; first published online November 2025.
7. Pleeging, Burger, and van Exel (2021). The relations between hope and subjective well-being: A literature overview and empirical analysis. Applied Research in Quality of Life, 16, 1019–1041; first published online December 2019.
8. Weis and Speridakos (2011). A meta-analysis of hope enhancement strategies in clinical and community settings. Psychology of Well-Being, 1, article 5.
9. Chio and colleagues (2024). Do affective states influence the receptivity of hope intervention? A three-week self-administered online hope intervention. Applied Research in Quality of Life, 19, 3237–3252.
10. Colla, Williams, Oades and Camacho-Morles (2022). “A New Hope” for Positive Psychology: A Dynamic Systems Reconceptualization of Hope Theory. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 809053.

Figure notes

Figure 3. Hope scores before and after four weeks

This graph presents a separate 2018 smartphone-intervention pilot, not the 2024 study discussed above. The authors reported adjusted average changes of +1.00 point in the intervention group and −0.56 points in the comparison group, accounting for baseline hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. Each group’s baseline is set to zero to show change, not its original score. The study’s hope measure ranged from 7 to 28, unlike the eight-point Adult Hope Scale example earlier in this article.

Only baseline and post-intervention assessments are shown. Lines connect those observations; they do not show measured weekly progress. Post-intervention assessments were collected on days 29–31 after a 28-day intervention. Confidence intervals for these change estimates were not provided in the cited results text and have not been inferred.

The study began with 112 college students. Posttest response was 41 of 66 intervention participants and 16 of 46 comparison participants; these are response counts, not the final analytic sample sizes. Classes, rather than individuals, were assigned to conditions. Substantial, unequal dropout and the absence of an active comparison intervention limit interpretation. The study did not establish sustained benefits or improved well-being. Several authors reported ownership interests in LifeData, whose platform was used.

Source: Daugherty and colleagues (2018). Smartphone delivery of a hope intervention: Another way to flourish. PLOS ONE, 13(6), e0197930. Graph created by Help Me Hope from the published adjusted change estimates.

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