Does Hope in Mind Influence People’s Problem-Solving Performance?

Abstract

Hope is often treated as a priceless human value anchored in goal-related cognitions. The experiment aimed to investigate whether current hopeful thinking is related to problem-solving performance and how induced goal-oriented thinking influences this problem-solving process. Participants (N = 410) were asked to recall and describe their successful or unsuccessful goal pursuit and complete a scale assessing current hopeful thinking. Subsequently, participants were instructed to (1) think about actions that would be taken to solve the societal problem (i.e., an insufficient number of volunteers in Social Welfare Centers) and (2) describe these actions. In general, people who recalled successful events felt more hopeful than those who recalled unsuccessful events. State Hope was positively correlated with both the quantity (i.e., the total number of solutions) and quality (i.e., usefulness) of participants’ offered solutions. No interaction between State Hope and type of conditions with solution quantity or solution quality was found. State hope, however, interacted with the type of recalled goal pursuit when sex differences were considered. More hopeful women had a better solution quality when they recalled an unsuccessful goal pursuit. For men, a similar pattern was found when they recalled a successful goal pursuit. Lastly, the findings were discussed in light of Snyder’s Theory of Hope.