6.2 Realistic hope and optimism

It is clear that there are benefits to cultivating hope and optimism.

However, it is important to consider that sometimes people can be overly optimistic in a way that is in contrast to the reality around them.  This is often known as ‘blind optimism’ or having ‘false hope’ and could lead to people making unwise decisions.

Positive psychologists would encourage people to aim for realistic hope and optimism, appreciating any risks in a situation as well as actively looking for any positive opportunities to improve the potential outcome.

How optimistic or hopeful are you?

Here is a short questionnaire that you can complete to help you to work out how optimistic/hopeful you are. There are no right or wrong answers, so try not to think too hard about your responses:

Follow the scoring information given at the bottom of the questionnaire to discover how optimistic/hopeful you are.

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(Adapted from Snyder et al., 1996)
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A document in the form of a questionnaire. The instructions are: Read each item carefully. Using the scale shown below, please select the number that best describes how you think about yourself right now and put that number in the blank before each sentence. Please take a few moments to focus on yourself and what is going on in your life at this moment. Once you have this “here and now” set, go ahead and answer each item according to the following scale: The scale is defined as 1 Definitely False, 2 Mostly False, 3 Somewhat False, 4 Slightly False, 5 Slightly True, 6 Somewhat True, 7 Mostly True, 8 Definitely True. The six statement are 1. If I should find myself in a jam, I could think of many ways to get out of it. 2. At the present time, I am energetically pursuing my goals. 3. There are lots of ways around any problem that I am facing now. 4. Right now, I see myself as being pretty successful. 5. I can think of many ways to reach my current goals. 6. At his time, I am meeting the goals I have set for myself. Scoring information is given as follows: Pathways subscale score: Add items 1, 3, and 5. Scores on this subscale can range from 3 to 24, with higher scores indicating higher levels of pathways thinking. Agency subscale score: Add items 2, 4, and 6. Scores on this subscale can range from 3 to 24, with higher scores indicating higher levels of agency thinking. Total hope score: Add the pathways and agency subscales together. Scores can range from 6 to 48, with higher scores representing higher hope levels.

You can download this writable PDF version [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)]   of the questionnaire if you prefer to save it to your device and/or print it out.

If you find that you feel that you are less optimistic in life that is perfectly normal, and the world is full of optimists and pessimists. Often this will have been of benefit to you and perhaps helped you to cope, to be prepared, and to not feel surprised when things in life go wrong.

In the long term, however, you may feel that it would be of benefit to explore some exercises from positive psychology as research has found that hope and optimism are not static attributes and that you can learn ways to improve them.

Are you optimistic or pessimistic?

Where would you place yourself on this line? Use the interactive slider to locate where you think you are.

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A downloadable PDF version of the interactive is available for accessibility or if the interactive doesn't play in your browser.

It can be helpful to recognise how naturally optimistic you are in order to consider how you have an effect on those around you.  We call our thoughts around how optimistic we are, our explanatory style.

The graphics below gives us two examples of how the explanatory styles of an optimist or pessimist might react to a negative event, in this example the outcome of a job interview.

Look at the first diagram below, which demonstrates how the explanatory styles of an optimist and a pessimist react in a different way to an unsuccessful job interview

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An illustration of a female sitting cross legged on the floor typing into a laptop computer. The heading is unsuccessful job interview. To the left of the person is a box saying optimist. The speech bubble above the box says Never mind- I tried my best. I’m disappointed but It’s not the end of the world! Next time I’ll do better. You win some, you lose some! It wasn’t meant to be. To the right of the person is a box saying pessimist. The speech bubble above the box says I’m such a failure! I knew this would happen. I may as well give up! I’m hopeless at everything! I’m never going to be able to get a job! This always happens to me!

Now look below at how the explanatory styles of an optimist and pessimist react to a successful job interview.

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An illustration of a female sitting cross legged on the floor typing into a laptop computer. The heading is successful job interview. To the left of the person is a box saying optimist. The speech bubble above the box says I deserve this as I’ve worked hard. I’m really excited about the future! I’m proud of myself! Deep down I knew I could do it! To the right of the person is a box saying pessimist. The speech bubble above the box says I was just lucky this time! The other applicants must have been truly awful! Have they made a mistake! I’m dreading starting this job now as they’ll see that I’m not good enough!

6.1 What is hope and optimism and how can it help you and your family?

6.3 Hope and optimism activities for you and your family