What is hope?
Psychologist, Dr. Rick Snyder defined hope in quantifiable terms as a positive cognitive process in which a person has goal-directed thinking that uses both pathways (the capacity to find routes to their desired goals) and agency (the necessary motivation to use those routes).
Hope and the Brain
Wang, S., Xu, X., Zhou, M., Chen, T., Yang, X., Chen, G., & Gong, Q. (2017). Hope and the brain: Trait hope mediates the protective role of medial orbitofrontal cortex spontaneous activity against anxiety. NeuroImage, 157, 439–447.
A 2017 research study found that trait hope helps protect the brain against anxiety. What does this mean? As hope goes up, the impact of anxiety on our brain’s “thinking part” goes down. Showing that hope helps a person use higher-order thinking even when facing stressful situations.
Research studies about the impact of hope on students
Digital Resources
Looking for resources to help strengthen hope in school and in the classroom? Click the link below for some free resources that go with the book The School of Hope.